


In the Image of the Stars

by delilahbelle



Series: Conquer the Stars [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Marvel Comics - Fandom
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-03
Updated: 2016-11-07
Packaged: 2018-05-04 15:38:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 124,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5339462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/delilahbelle/pseuds/delilahbelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bobbi does not take kindly to her husband bringing in his former partner instead of killing her, then she feels sorry for her. Natasha resents him for it, then she doesn't know how to take it. Clint just hopes he won't regret it. They all must make the best of things. The best of things turns out to be better than they could have hoped.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part One: Bobbi

**Author's Note:**

> Technically a rewrite of Let's Get Back To You and Me, except much different (as per usual, my writing got away from me). My comics knowledge is spotty, so forgive me. Rated for language and mild sexuality.

SUMMER 2001

Bobbi does not consider herself a jealous person, but the day Clint brings the Black Widow into SHIELD, she sits in her lab office and seethes. It doesn't matter that she knows her husband was Widow's sometimes partner while SHIELD was hunting him down, and it doesn't matter that Clint flat out told Fury he wasn't going to able to kill her. She is seething for foolish petty reasons, and no amount of logic in the world will break through that.

But she tries anyway, because Clint might be back soon enough to go home with her, and she is not going to pick a fight with her husband over the woman he might have fallen in love with once. Bobbi doesn't know for certain, but the way he talked about her certainly seemed to suggest it. Which is why she never asked—Bobbi and Clint started dating while she was supposed to be hunting him down. At that time, Clint was working with Widow, and Bobbi never wanted to know if she was his second choice. Or if she was his only choice because she doubts someone as infamously cruel as Natalia Romanova would fall in love easily. 

“You're not still mad at him, are you?” Annabelle Montgomery, her lab assistant, pokes her head through Bobbi's door. 

“I was never mad at him,” she says, even though she knows Annabelle won't believe her.

“You're safe for now. Your husband is being detained by R&D. Something about new hearing aids.”

R&D is always detaining Clint about new hearing aids. Nothing short of the miracle of fixing his ear drums will stop them. Every new hearing aid is smaller than the last, more difficult to put in, and more painful for him.

“I have the finalized research. Dr. Masters wants your approval.”

Bobbi takes the stack of paper from her but her mind is still on Natalia and Clint. She can't focus on trying to determine if the wording is clear enough and the ideas put plainly enough. She stops and starts a dozen times, trying to rid herself of the images of her husband entangled with the redhead. It probably never happened, and if it did, she shouldn't care. Clint married her after all, and she knew he'd been with other women.

Annabelle pops her head back in some time later. “It's six. I'm leaving for the day, unless you need something?” 

“I'm good.”

“Dr. Masters needs that by tomorrow morning. And I've held off your husband, but no one else is going to do it when I'm gone. But you're safe for a while. I think he's working on the mission report.”

“I'm not mad at him,” she argues. “Good night.”

–

Around eight o'clock, Bobbi has managed to successfully shove away all upsetting images. She's a third of the way through the research when her stomach protests her lack of dinner. Something resembling a chicken salad sandwich and a mass of yellowed lettuce are on offer in the cafeteria. Bobbi picks up four sandwiches and some water and heads off to Clint's desk. 

The web of desks where field agents file their mission reports make Bobbi feel claustrophobic at best. The desks form an awkward pattern, there's not even an illusion of privacy, and it's impossible to breathe with so many people in one place. She picks her through to her desk and grabs a hair tie and doubles back to Clint's. His hearing aids are on his desk and he's typing away. She taps his shoulder; he tilts his head in a way that people take to mean he doesn't want to be interrupted. They're right but she's his wife, so she drops a kiss on his neck. He murmurs her name. 

Seeing he's not going to turn around unless she tries harder to get his attention—Clint likes finishing reports as soon as possible so he doesn't have to do them later—she drops two sandwiches and a water bottle on the desk. His head shifts minutely to see them. Bobbi takes a moment to envy his vision, because she would definitely have to move more than that to see the food even peripherally. She steals a post-it note from Garcia's desk next to Clint's and writes _Have to review this by morning. Don't forget to eat. Go home if you finish before me, B._ And she doesn't even have to be able to see Clint's face to know he's rolling his eyes. He always waits for her. She drops another kiss on his shoulder and walks off. 

–

Clint knocks on her door when she has three pages left. She looks up and blinks a couple times. Behind him the bright fluorescent lights in the hallway glow painfully. She usually turns down the lights in her office when it gets late. Clint signs, _It's one. Are you done?_

_Three more pages._

Clint throws himself into the chair across her desk and juggles the stress balls Annabelle leaves there as if Bobbi ever uses them. She watches him for a few minutes and the feelings of irritation and jealousy from earlier don't come back. That's good. She doesn't need to be mad at her husband for that. 

Clint gets up to six balls by the time she pulls herself back into her work. She probably shouldn't have taken such a long break for dinner, but it was much more fun translating a French chemistry paper than reviewing her own research. When she finishes, Clint has all ten balls in the air, hands moving rapidly, and he isn't even concerned. His hearing aids are dangling on his jacket collar, and he's about eight hours past barely awake. And he doesn't drop a single ball. To be fair, the juggling is ingrained in him and the long days and nights are the reality of being a field agent. 

She exaggerates the motion of flipping the papers back to their start to catch his attention. While he lets the balls drop back on her desk one by one and lines them up, she shrugs on her coat, leaves the hair tie in her desk drawer, and grabs her bag from one of the many hooks on her wall. Bobbi wants to ask him about the mission, but she can't hold a conversation with him while one of them is driving. It's impossible to sign and drive and see the other one signing at the same time. But it turns out not to matter, because Clint has his hearing aids hooked in when she gets back from dropping the research on Dr. Masters' desk. 

“What do you want to talk about?” she asks, because they've driven home in complete silence many times before. Or with the radio on, playing jazz, Clint's least favorite music ever. She saves it for when he can't bother to want to hear. He always knows when she's playing though.

“Annabelle said you were mad at me.”

“Annabelle was wrong.”

“Are you sure about that? You didn't look happy when I came back.” He tugs the keys out her hand. The Corvette was his indulgence. They live in New York City and she never understood the need for a car, but he wanted one. The subway was an annoying way to get to work given the SHIELD base was located on the very outskirts of the city. Once you got to the subway station you still had to walk, so Clint always opts to drive. Some mornings, Bobbi concedes he had the right idea. Being jostled by people in the subway first thing in the morning does nothing good for her disposition.

“I was hoping you'd kill her,” she says. The words are cruel but Bobbi has a six inch scar over her heart from her fight with the Black Widow two years ago. Her only consolation is that she broke Widow's ribs and wrist in the fight. Neither of them had come out entirely victorious.

Clint winces like he knows what's she thinking about. “Did you want me to? There's plenty of time.”

“Do you want to kill her?”

“Not really. I forgot she gave you that scar. It didn't seem so bad by the time I saw you.”

“Is there any reason Fury didn't shoot her the second you brought her in?” Clint missed most of her recovery from the wound as he was somewhere in Australia, avoiding giant versions of animals and trying to infiltrate a drug cartel. She knows he must know how bad the wound was but it was easy to ignore for Natalia. Lots of things were easy for Clint to ignore for Natalia, she'd long since learned. She just didn't expect to be one of them. She feels the irritation and jealousy well up again.

“You're mad. I didn't think about it, doll, I'm sorry.”

“I'm not mad. You didn't answer my question.”

“Who knows what Fury wants? Information I guess. KGB members. Russian assassins. Sofia—Natalia—knows a lot of bad people.”

“Will she give them up?”

“If it's better for her. Wanna tell me why you're angry?”

“I'm not.”

“ _Barbara._ ”

“Clinton.” She rubs her forehead. “I might be a little jealous.”

“Thought that was my schtick.”

“You're fond of her.”

“I'm in _love_ with you.”

“And she's gorgeous and—”

“I know about five things about Sofia—Natalia—damn it. See, I barely even know her name.”

“That doesn't mean you can't like her.”

“I do like her or I would have killed her. It's not like it wasn't tempting. She left me on a rooftop in Brno to get tortured for whatever she did to that crime family. I'm still not sure.”

“I'll get over it. I was just taken by surprise.”

“I don't believe that,” he says, taking out his hearing aids. “Hit me on the arm if someone honks at me.”

–

“Any reason why you're mad at Barton?” Melinda May asks the next day while they spar. Bobbi dodges Melinda's attempt to hit her, grabs her arm, throws her to the floor, and pins her down.

“I'm not mad at him. Why does everyone think I am?”

“Your lab assistant said you were.”

She's going to kill Annabelle. “I'm not. What would I be mad at him for?”

“Bringing in his former flame and making sure she's well treated?” Melinda says as she twists away and pins Bobbi to the floor.

“She's still a prisoner. And from what I heard this morning, she's pissed off at him for betraying her.”

“Probably, but I have three hundred on you being jealous if you wanna be a good friend.”

“Fuck you, May.” She flips backwards and throws Melinda into the bands around the sparring area. “I'm out.”

SHIELD does not waste money making their agents comfortable. The shower stalls are tinier than the one in the studio apartment she lived in when she first moved to New York, and the water is tepid at best. Bobbi takes a cold shower and rushes through redressing in her jeans and Henley. Melinda has moved on to spar with someone else, but Bobbi can feel the weight of her gaze as she leaves the training rooms. Maybe running off wasn't the best way of handling that.

She's on her way up to the labs when Clint pops up behind her and drags her into an alcove in the stairwell, as if the stairs themselves aren't a private enough place to talk. She's one of the few people who use them frequently. 

“Am I being kidnapped?”

“Not until our anniversary,” he says. “I have plans. They involve slinky dresses.”

“You'll look fantastic, I'm sure.”

He nips at her wrist where he still holds onto her. “I overheard some junior agents saying there's a bet going on about how long it'll take you to find out I'm sleeping with Natalia.”

“Mel says she has three hundred riding on me being angry. If I want to be a good friend.”

“Won't take much.”

“I'm mildly jealous, not angry. I didn't expect you to kill her. Your fondness for her is obvious when you talk about her.”

“I just wanted to warn you. And let you know it isn't true.”

“I know.” She leans her forehead against his. “I heard Natalia is _actually_ angry with you.”

“She said she trusted me,” he says as he loops his arms around her waist and draws her tightly against him. “Which might be the funniest thing I've heard since my brother tried to convince me our father loved us.”

The idea of the Black Widow trusting anyone is ridiculous, Bobbi has to agree. Everything they know about her suggests she cares nothing for other people, even Clint. “What do you think?”

“I think she's never been beaten before and arrogance has made her compliant. And I think she thought I was too stupid to be able to take her down.”

“Is she playing nice with Fury?”

“He told her if she makes one wrong move, he's going to cut out her eye like she talked his partner into cutting out his. She glared a whole lot, but she stopped trying to antagonize him.” She can hear a crackle in his comm. One of his hands lingeringly trails across her hip in its quest to the comm. He presses the button to speak into his and uses his palm to adjust his hearing aid. “I missed some words.” He listens for a second, pulling his head away from hers some. “On my way.” He lets go of the button and kisses her warmly. “It's time to start interrogating her.”

“Have fun.”

–

Bobbi spends two hours cleaning up her lab and ordering new supplies, and when she's done, she heads down to the interrogation rooms to see if her husband's still there. He is. Clint is standing outside the two-way glass, watching Fury try to get information out of Natalia. She doesn't look happy. Or completely sane. She's pulling against her restraints and snarling angry Russian words at an unperturbed Fury. Clint is monotonously translating them to another agent, as he is one of the two people in the New York City SHIELD base to speak Russian. Most of them who learned it during the Cold War are retired or dead now. Bobbi sidles up close to him and signs, _Any luck?_

Clint rolls his eyes; the other agent—Diana Garcia, a communications officer, if Bobbi remembers correctly—snorts. “We'll be lucky if she doesn't get out of those restraints,” she says, because basically everyone at SHIELD knows sign language.

“They shock you if you try,” Bobbi tells her. “I doubt even the Black Widow could get out of them.”

Natalia leans further forward. They can see her muscles in her shoulders straining against the thin material the prisoners wore. She launches into a growling livid Russian tangent, her face growing nearly as red as her hair and her eyes glittering with malice and rage. Clint says into his comm, “You probably don't need a translation on that, sir,” and Fury glares through the window at him briefly. 

“What's she saying?” Diana asks.

“Death threats, name calling, cuss words. Some things don't have an English translation.”

“I was hoping you'd give me some Russian curse words, Agent Barton, not tell me what I already know.”

He grins at the tiny brunette. “You're too young for some of those words.”

Diana looks about sixteen, but she's probably at least old enough to drink. Bobbi nudges him to tell him to be nice and he throws his arm around her shoulder. “Maybe later, Garcia. Don't want Fury catching—What's he doing?”

Fury has pulled out his gun. While they all blink at the mirror, he shoots Natalia in the leg. She cuts off with a beastly howl and grinds her teeth. “Go to hell, Nicholas,” she hisses after a moment.

Fury just laughs as he exits. “Doctor Morse, did you run of lab reports?”

“Yes,” she says. “Was it necessary to shoot her?”

“No, but it felt damn good. Someone knock her out and take to her medical. Take your time. She's not in danger of dying. Morse, with me, I want to talk to you.”

She follows him out the door. Admittedly she's a little afraid of what he wants to talk about because she's pretty sure she already knows it has something to do with Natalia. “Sir, for the record, if you're thinking of asking me to do anything that might harm the Black Widow, I'm declining now.”

“Why? It might be fun.”

“I have every intent of making sure my relationship with my husband stays intact. Just because you didn't care your marriage doesn't mean I don't either.”

“That's a low blow, Doctor.” She takes it to mean he might have actually been married once; it's been a rumor since the day she started. He enters the elevator. The junior agents avoid looking at him; Miriam Fisher, who has worked for SHIELD longer than Fury has, smiles her dimply smile at him. “Good afternoon, Nick. You're looking positively evil today.” Her gray hair is tucked back into a severe bun, and her clothes run more towards paisley. She used to be a field agent; now she works in HR. Bobbi thinks the woman must be nearly eighty, but she shows no sign of slowing down.

Fury grins back at her. “The Black Widow wasn't feeling particularly talkative.”

Miriam frowns. “I fought her before. So sad that she's still twenty and I'm an old woman now.”

“You're only as young as you feel,” Fury says. “Want a crack at her?”

“You're terrible.”

Inside Fury's office, Bobbi waits for what she hopes will not be a terrible lab suggestion. Fury settles himself into his chair. “Widow's cells could unlock a lot of interesting things,” he says. “She heals faster, moves faster than the ordinary person. The secret to unlocking the supersoldier serum could be in there.”

“I believe General Ross is already looking into that.”

“He hasn't found scientists to work on it yet.”

“What exactly would this entail?”

“You're the scientist, Morse. What would you need to pull this off?”

She leans back and studies him. She has the utmost respect for him and she follows him willingly enough, but she's never sure what he's thinking. It makes for an uncomfortable working relationship. “Blood samples,” she says. “Tissue, marrow. Nothing that would discomfort her. Once we have an idea of what we're looking at and for, we may need more from her.”

“How long do you need to prepare?”

“A couple of days?” She doesn't mean for it to come out as a question. “What exactly is it that you want me to do? Try to reverse engineer her invulnerability? Or just look for something that might help with the making of a supersoldier serum? I don't see how that's good idea. Captain America was the only known supersoldier, and he died before we could study the long term effects of the serum.”

“Let's start with what we can get out of her cells and see what road that leads us down.”

“I don't really want to be party to the making of a supersoldier army. If that happens, leave my name out of it.”

–

Within three days, Bobbi has gone over the details with Annabelle and received Natalia's samples. Clint does not appear to be very happy about this, but it doesn't involve Natalia getting physically harmed, unless one counted the dislocated shoulder she got from being held down get the samples. Injecting her with a drug could potentially alter the results. (It probably wouldn't, but Fury insisted. He's still bitter about the eye). She spends days in the lab trying to break down the chemicals the Red Room injected her with. Some of them haven't been used in decades. When they have enough initial information, she takes it to Fury. 

Good news is they probably won't be able to reverse engineer the supersoldier serum. Bad news is Fury isn't happy about that. Bobbi refrains from pointing out that the long term effects could be terrible—insanity, immortality, the body eating away at itself or otherwise trying to destroy the weaker cells, anything. She'd seen enough bad effects of questionable science experiments, some done by her. She didn't want to be party to another one. Fury knows enough to know the science and he deems the worth greater than the risk, but she can't. Fury often thinks the risk is negligible. Making decisions on life and death situations daily slowly robs the director of remembering that he's supposed to be protecting the general population, not putting them more at risk.

Clint is waiting in her office in a leather jacket with his legs slung over the side of the chair. “What's wrong, doll?”

“You're the one up here,” she says. “That usually means you need something.”

“You've been falling asleep as soon as you get home. I miss you. Annabelle said you were done with part one of your research and it's almost the end of my shift so I was gonna drag you out to dinner.” He swings his legs and resumes a sitting position. “But you got that look like you're wondering what went wrong.”

“Fury wanted us to recreate Captain America's supersoldier serum.”

Clint rolls his eyes. Coulson's talked everyone's ear off about Captain America before, and Clint can't see what's so great about the guy that he went down in history. “And you can't?”

“I don't want to even if we could.”

“What's wrong?”

Bobbi launches into a tangent about all her worries. She doubts he understands all the science behind it, and she knows some of her fears border on ridiculous, but he listens patiently. She lists possible long term effects and side effects and discusses why Natalia's blood isn't even very useful in this case—the supersoldier serum was not a complete success for the Russians. She may be more than averagely human, but she wasn't at the level of Captain America. Then there's the fact that several chemicals used have been outlawed in the US or are so old they'll have to make them in the lab because finding them will be impossible, and the cost and time will be huge. Not to mention, if Dr. Erskine's notes were right and the serum intensified what was already in a person, finding the correct people to inject with it would be a lot of trouble and she's sure it won't be worth it. 

She talks herself hoarse and winds down by dropping her head down onto her desk. She can hear Clint get up out of his chair and move around the room, finally settling onto her desk beside her. His fingertips rub through her hair and he gently tugs her head up. She drinks the water he gives her and puts a cough drop in her mouth. “I'm okay,” she says after a beat. Her voice is scratchy. “We can't recreate it anyway. Maybe I'll start praying so it stays that way.”

Clint's body shakes with silent laughter. She has to agree the idea of her praying is funny—she'd abandoned her faith years ago, along with her traditional family and any ties back home. And her Southern accent, except for when she was worked up. Clint calls her Miss Georgia Peach when she does then makes a crude joke about loving eating juicy peaches. “Come on, baby,” he says. “Dinner and a stiff drink. You need one.”

“Was your day better?”

“I spent half the day of the phone with Barney and the other half glaring at junior agents. Everyone is convinced I'm sleeping with Natalia. I tried to visit her yesterday and she spit at me. How does that work for sleeping together?”

Bobbi resists the urge to ask if they ever have. If it's yes, she would regret asking. If it's no… she's not sure she would believe that. But she knows Clint was with other women before her. It's not like he did that thing with his tongue for the first time with her. She shuts down the thoughts, peels off her lab coat, and shrugs into a flannel shirt she stole from Clint. “People need something to bet about, I guess,” she says. “You know how it is here.” They start for the garage. It's dark outside, much darker than she thought it would be, even for winter. She must have talked longer than she thought she had. The cough drop is helping soothe her throat. She curls her fingers around his and leans into him. “Do you have a place in mind?”

“That place that makes giant blue margaritas.”

Great, just what she needs—a hangover. By the end of one of those margaritas, she'll be lucky if she doesn't start dancing on the tables. Clint won't let her. Probably. One of these days, she wants to figure out what they put in there. Plain tequila it can't be.

–

Bobbi wakes up with a headache and Clint's arm heavy around her. She takes a deep breath, swallows down the swell of nausea, and opens her eyes. Clint's still in his t-shirt from last night which smells like beer, because sometime during the night she was drunk and upset and slammed her hand on the table and knocked over his beer. She wiggles out from under his arm, brushes her hand over his cheek when he shifts in his sleep and reaches for her, and goes to the bathroom medicine cabinet. She swallows some pain pills with a handful of tap water and rummages through until she finds some anti-nausea medicine. Ten minutes later, she's certain she's not going to throw up so she heads to the kitchen.

Clint yawns his way into the kitchen sometime after she's managed down have coffee, toast, and started cooking an actual breakfast. He drops a kiss on her head and pours himself the rest of the coffee. “I'll do that,” he says. “You look like a zombie.”

“Such a flattering husband.” But she steals the coffee and sits down at the table. Clint grumbles but goes about making another pot and some food. 

“I have a meeting this morning,” he said. “I woke up with a voice mail from Fury. Natalia wants to talk.”

“Good luck with that.”

“Did you think she'll say anything useful?”

“No.”

But Bobbi goes to the meeting with him anyway. Her clearance is high enough and Fury wants to talk to her about Natalia's blood again. She tosses her hair in a messy ponytail and doesn't bother with contacts because the idea of trying to put something in her dry eyes sounds painful. While Clint drives, she listens to soft jazz and uses an entire bottle of eye drops. 

The meeting is held in one of the conference rooms that look more like jail cells. Electrified metal bars run along the edges and there are enough old-school cuffs and chains for it to be disturbing. The first time Clint was in this room, he said he's pretty sure he'd seen the horror movie set here. Fury, because his sense of humor is disturbing, then filmed a creepy interrogation in this room to show the Academy students. It's a highly effective film. The people who can't handle the sort of stuff SHIELD does drop out immediately.

Natalia is already chained in newer cuffs, ones that shock the prisoner if they try to move too much. Fury is sitting at the head of the table, watching her with what might have been a smirk if he were in a different situation. Clint squeezes Bobbi's hand and sits next to Natalia; Fury tracks him with disapproving eyes. Bobbi sits next to Maria Hill, who has been tasked with moving Natalia around the base. Hill gives her a brief smile then turns back to her charge, her hand deceptively lax near her gun. Coulson and some of the other higher ranking agents round out the numbers.

“We're calling this meeting to order,” Fury says. “Ms. Romanova has important information to share with us, or so she claims.”

Natalia makes a sound in the back of her throat and looks like she has something nasty to say. But at Clint's silent prompting, she begins to share. If the information is true, they'll be able to capture KGB agents who'd evaded them for years. She lists off known aliases and bank account numbers, last known locations of their homes and weapons caches. Fury actually leans back in his chair, a sure sign he's shocked at how much she's sharing.

Eventually, she winds down. There's a moment of silence. Hill seems vaguely impressed. Clint, however, knows Natalia the best and leans towards her, muttering low in Russian. “Do you think I would do that?” she says with a low terrifying laugh, and Clint just cuts her a look. “I liked you much better when you were easier to manipulate. Of course I know more. I'm just here to bargain for not being poked at anymore.”

Bobbi ignores the relief rushing through her because if Fury really wants the serum remade or anything else from Natalia's blood, he'll bargain something else. Fury only says, “We'll see.” He leaves the room with only a nod, and Hill takes Natalia's arm and leads her away. The other agents move away to check the validity of her information. 

–

Fury calls Bobbi to his office two weeks later. “Her information has so far proven true. Are you sure we can't get anything out her blood?”

She'd prepared for this. “Can we reverse engineer the supersoldier serum? No. Whatever was used was absorbed into the cells and isn't giving us enough information. And, as I said before, she's not at the level of Captain America. To reverse engineer that, we'd probably need copious amounts of his blood.”

“Is there anything you can do with hers?”

“Create a counter serum to restart her aging process, maybe. There are some things that might work. But figuring out how to stop someone's aging process? Her cells have been modified with old chemicals that would need to be in the exact right solution or it could eat away the person of the inside out. I imagine the Red Room left a trail of victims. And the cost would be in the million range.”

Fury studies her while he mulls over his options. They aren't pretty. The World Security Council doesn't like that Natalia is still alive. Maybe they fear she'll escape and murder them all—Bobbi doesn't know. But they don't like her being here. Information is useful but not so useful that she could be kept alive indefinitely. Recreating something as prolific as the supersolider serum from her cells could potentially keep her alive longer, but Fury doesn't care about that. He'll do whatever he thinks is best. Bobbi may or may not agree with it.

“I'd like to talk to her,” she says when it's clear Fury doesn't have anything to say just yet. “We needed a lot of that information, and we both know she has more.”

“Interrogation in a cell isn't your style, Morse.”

“I meant a friendly chat.”

“Go ahead. And remind me to pull that up on camera later—I wouldn't want to miss it.”

–

She shrugs off her lab coat and leaves it outside the cell door. In the metal, she studies her blurred reflection and wonders if how she looks will have any effect on Natalia. It won't; she knows that. She smooths down her blouse and tailored slacks anyway, swipes her card, and gives the command. Inside there's another level of security; the retina and fingerprint scanners are overkill in her opinion. 

Natalia is picking at her nails. She doesn't look like she did when Clint first brought her in or like she did two weeks ago. Being stuffed in an underground cell has drained her pale skin of what little color it had. The cell is completely sealed; there's no air flow, and the cool air blowing through the air conditioner turns stale immediately. Her now dull curls are matted and tangled—she isn't allowed a comb. Her nails have grown and been chipped or broken off, and her lips are cracked from dryness. She's probably underfed. The cell has a small bathroom with clean enough tap water to drink so she never goes thirsty, but meals are usually tossed together quickly and made with leftovers from the cafeteria, whose food already lacks a lot. Taking blood from her probably didn't help. With the clothes the prisoners wear, Bobbi can't tell if she lost weight, but her face looks sunken and her shoulders more angular. 

Despite her haggard appearance, Natalia seems as bored and disdainful as ever. She picks at a shard of nail and gives Bobbi a look that stops just short of a sneer. “May I help you, Doctor Morse?”

“I wanted to see how you were doing.”

“Your accommodations could use some work.”

Bobbi sinks into the bolted down reinforced chair in the corner. Natalia's eyes track her with minute movements. While she returns to her nails, Bobbi digs out a tube of lip balm from her pocket. It's the best she can offer right now. She leans over and lets Natalia see the label. 

“It's used.”

Bobbi resists the urge to tell her spies share more bodily fluids in more dangerous ways because she knows that and anything she'll take as condescension won't help. “You can stop eying it like that. It's not poisoned. It's mine and you're a prisoner. We don't kill prisoners with anything other than a bullet between the eyes.”

Natalia's face says she doesn't believe her but she takes it anyway, applies a quick coat, and hands it back with a perfunctory “thank you.” Then she settles into her chair and watches Bobbi.

“Director Fury wanted to see if we could reverse engineer the things the Red Room did to you. That's why all the tests.”

“Does he want to build an army? His underlings not enough for him?” 

“The US government has been trying to reveal the secrets of invulnerability since they made Captain America. But the scientist died the same day and with him the formula.”

“And they think they can get it from me.”

“It's the only reason you're still alive.”

“Here I thought it was Clint.”

Bobbi ignores her tone and answers as if it were a genuine comment. “Clint is trying to keep you alive, and Fury has a lot of faith in Clint's assessments of situations, but he's not objective when it comes to you.” She pauses, swallows back the little edge of bitterness before it creeps into her words. Natalia needs no other weapons. “You have information.”

“Why do you care? You're a scientist, not a spy.”

“You almost killed me in Riga two years ago, Natalia. Don't tell me you've forgotten already.”

She shrugs. “I've attacked a lot of people.”

Bobbi doesn't believe her for a second, but it's not worth the fight. “I'm a spy with PhD. And Clint's wife. I'm not interested in keeping you alive. I'm interested in sparing my husband the pain of losing someone he's foolishly attached himself to.” There's a brief flicker of something in Natalia's face. “But ultimately, it's Fury's decision. And you're not worth it to him or anyone else. I'm done poking at you for now. We can't make anything but poison from your blood.”

–

Clint shows up at her office two hours later with a bruise blossoming on his cheek. He drops into a chair and says evenly, “Natalia was very upset to learn I have a wife.”

“At least we know she has emotions now. Medical can give you an ice pack for that, you know.”

Clint's lived with bruises his entire life, so she expects the dismissive shrug that comment gets but she still feels a stab of annoyance. He'll complain about the bruise later, when it'll be too late for ice. “I don't get her,” he says. “But I want to know what happened between you two.”

“We talked about the experiments. Sort of.”

“She's angry.”

“Well, she hasn't heard Fury's new plan yet.”

Clint straightens. “ _I_ haven't heard Fury's new plan yet.”

“We know enough of the Red Room's commands so a deprogramming is in the cards. We might have a chance to restart her aging process—Annabelle's getting together a team for that. Tomorrow morning, Fury is supposed to offer a choice to her. Either she becomes an informant or she gets experimented on further. He's not in the mood to negotiate. You'll be happy to learn I'll have nothing to do with it. I'm getting sent on a mission first thing in the morning.”

“I was never mad at you for doing experiments on her.”

“You weren't happy about it.” Clint concedes the point while she flexes her fingers. She's been filling out the paperwork for her budget on this mission. For an agency with so much tech, they sure had a lot of paperwork. She thinks they can at least put it on the computer. The mission brief lived up to its name unfortunately. It was so short she has no idea what kind of budget she'll need. She never does. Missions go whatever which way they want to, and planning is necessary but more often than not, the plans have to be changed last second. She's walked into missions with recon and no plan and have them ended well just as often as having them preplanned.

“Where are you going?”

“Łódź. I think I said that right.” Polish is one of her least favorite languages ever. Every word sounds the same and none of them sound like how they're spelled. She could ask Clint, but his Polish is slurred. All SHIELD agents had to know at least five other languages other than their native one. Why Clint had chosen Polish was beyond her, but he'd never mastered it. 

“Close enough.”

“I'll be playing Italian heiress anyway. I have an evening filled with dress fittings. Are you on call?”

“No. I'll try to reason with Natalia while you're doing that. We can pick up a pizza later.”

“One of these days we have to start cooking again.”

–

Łódź is chilly for August. Bobbi tosses off her heels and runs barefoot through the street, dodging bullets and cursing in every language she knows. The pavement is cold and she left her coat back in the ballroom, along with her gun. She digs out a knife from her bra and tosses into one of the goons. A thump sounds, followed by sounds of his colleagues tripping over the body. She silently apologizes to the people who handle mission clothes and rips the bottom of the tight dress to give her some more movement. It's not very helpful, but by the time they catch up to where she was, she's managed to climb up a ladder and onto the roof of an old building. She crouches low into the shadows and waits. 

The goons keep running straight, jumping over a fence she never would have gotten over in this dress. Biting back a shiver, she creeps down the other side of the building carefully and gets her bearings. Far enough from the ballroom to make the walk back miserable. Even farther to the SHIELD safe house she's operating out of. She edges along the street, finds her shoes, and checks them over for tracking devices. Instead of putting them back on, she keeps moving as quickly as she can, along rows of closed businesses. It's two in the morning, and her instincts tell her she'll have to abandon the mission for tonight, but she knows she'll try again. When she gets close to the ballroom, though, she finds her target's goons spread all over the area on high alert. Instead, she backtracks a couple streets, waves down a taxi, and gets dropped off at a hotel a half mile from the building where SHIELD keeps their safe house. 

The next day, she puts on her suit, decks herself in weapons, tops it all with a forty year old mink coat stuffed with various things, and spends the morning prowling around her target's place of business. He's well protected. She needs the information he keeps in a thumb drive in his inside suit pocket. Fury didn't care if the guy was alive or dead at the end, but it's the information that's important. Names and addresses of the people contributing money to illegal experiments. So far, the victims of these experiments were prostitutes and other less than fortunate women. What those experiments were trying to do was a different job, one that needed a team and a whole lot of planning. That wasn't something one could just walk in to.

Around lunchtime, her target takes a stroll down the street, buying a newspaper and some street food, calling everyone by name, being polite and courteous. Criminals like this are often well-respected. It makes it harder to find someone to rat on him. He's only got two goons with him, walking several steps behind him. She wraps her hair under a hat she found stuffed in her coat and works her behind the goons. The crowd thin out when they get to a park. Her target walks into the deserted park and she keeps walking with what's left of the crowd. She crosses the street and goes back the other, detouring into the park this time. She doesn't stand out. No one pays the least bit of attention to her, not even the goons. With a couple of quick flicks of her wrist, they're knocked out. Two hundred feet ahead of her, her target is meeting with a man whose name escapes her but whose face she remembers from more than one file. 

Bobbi sighs to herself—two days in and she's already sick of this mission. It's cool and drizzly outside, and the damp chill has set into her bones, even with the coat and the layer of material sewn into her suit to keep her warm. For the first time, she actually _wants_ a cup of hot chocolate topped with marshmallows. She steps around a bench and edges herself around the clearing until she's behind a statue. She can only make out a couple of words, 'spy' being one of them. Her target's telling the other man he has a spy after him, she bets. She tugs out a camera pen from her pocket, aims it on the other man, snaps the quiet pictures, and attaches the hidden comm in the pen to her ear. In seconds, a computerized voice tells her, “Winston Kelemen, threat level: high, status: wanted alive for questioning.” She reattaches the comm to the pen, rifles through her weapons of a tranquilizer dart or two, and comes up with one. 

Her target can die, that isn't important, but she hates attacking people in public places. She scoots around the statue, plays a one person game of hide and seek while looking for more goons, and decides to just go for it. She shoots the tranq first—it lands neatly in Winston Kelemen's neck. His fingers fly up to the area and he shouts out in shock. Her target spins in her general direction; her bullet hits him directly between the eyes. She scrambles over a bench, pats the guy's pockets and tries to ignore the stench of a rapidly evacuating body. Shoving the thumb drive in her pockets, she heaves Winston up, takes out the dart, drags him to the curb, and shoves him inside a taxi.

And that's when all hell breaks loose.

–

Trying to cough with broken ribs isn't fun. Bobbi tries to simply not cough, but she knows that's not going to work. She tries to gulp down some of the broth Clint left her, but her throat hurts when she swallows. It's a change from everything just plain hurting all the time but not a welcome one.

She curses herself for the millionth time in the last three days for not seeing Winston Kelemen's goons. The ensuing fight had left her with broken ribs, a broken arm, internal bleeding, and more bruises than she knew what to do with. On top of that, being out in the damp chill had given her a cold. On the plus side, she'd retained her claim on Kelemen, who was currently in a much better state, albeit in one of SHIELD's bare cells, where they kept the ones who they were going to kill soon enough. Natalia isn't in one. She's in one of the more comfortable cells, one that had a veneer of comfort with an actual bed and your own bathroom. Never mind the bed is older than she is and the water never gets warmer than freezing. SHIELD doesn't bother much when they're pretty certain you'll be dead soon.

She feels a stab of sympathy for Natalia. Although whatever the Red Room did to her means she'll never have to deal with something as common as a cold, the prison cell isn't a good place to be. Bobbi forces herself to sit up and slowly moves off the bed. It's slow going. The internal bleeding has been dealt with, and her arm is in a long stiff cast. She pushes her hair back from her face, sneezes, and whimpers out loud when the movement jars her ribs. 

“Hey, now. What do you think you're doing?”

She starts, knocks the back of her knee into the bed, and collapses half on the floor. Barney crosses the room in three long strides.

Barney looks like Clint, except with red hair. They share similar personalities despite years of being separated and different lives. He's dressed in sweatpants and a ratty sweatshirt, looking very much like he didn't have a decent job. He drags her up off the floor. She regains control of her breathing before she asks, “What are you doing here?”

“Clint asked me to take care of you. You started a fever this morning, sis, why were you trying to get up?”

Bobbi has no family to go home to. Or rather, she does, but she doesn't want to go home to them. Some bad days, she wishes she could go home without being miserable there. Most of them, though, all she needs is Clint or her friends. Still, it's nice that Barney so easily adopted his brother's wife into their messed up makeshift family. “I want to go to the store.”

Barney eyes her in the same way Clint does whenever she says something he views as absolutely ridiculous, as if they both don't say ridiculous things all the time. She ignores him and rakes a hand through her hair. Or at least attempts to—her fingers get caught in the greasy tangles. “I should shower first.”

“You should lay back down,” Barney argues, but when she tries to stand her reaches out to steady her. “You can't get your cast wet. How're you going to shower?”

Bobbi usually takes baths when she has her arm in a cast. Clint washes her hair for her—he does it all the time already. She can usually manage the rest on her own. But now that she's standing, she feels dizzy from lack of food and exhausted to be on her feet and she doesn't really want Barney to see her naked, practically family or not. Silently, she sinks back into the bed. “Can you get me a notepad and a pen at least?” Barney shrugs his acquiescence, just like Clint. Bobbi wishes they'd just nod. When he comes back, she begins scribbling down all her plans.

–

Even Clint thinks she's up to something. Bobbi can't put into words that she just wants to be nice, that she feels sorry for Natalia, looking even more like a corpse than ever before. Clint goes along with it easily enough, but Fury wants to know what kind of poison she used. 

“For the last fucking time—”

“Medical took you off the painkillers, didn't they?” Fury says casually. “Okay. You win. The Black Widow can have the toiletries. But I don't want her to use that comb without supervision.”

She'd expected that. She thanks him and leaves his office before she loses her temper. Clint follows her silently, his tread steady and familiar. When they reach the cells, she spins around suddenly and he almost crashes into her. “Maybe you should give them to her,” she says. “She might not take them from me.”

“She won't take them from anyone,” Clint point outs.

“She knows you.”

“You're the one that wanted to be nice.” He crosses his arms over his chest and holds her gaze steadily.

“Don't say it like that. I do want to be nice. I just didn't think this through as carefully as I could have. Hold this, will you?” She shoves the bag at him; he takes it automatically. Her arm is starting to hurt from doing everything with it, her ribs haven't gotten any better, and she's still weak from the fever. 

Clint shifts the bag into one hand and rubs at her arm with his other. “Let's just go in together,” he suggests, quietly, almost like he's placating her. She debates being upset about that, but it isn't like she hasn't spoken to him like that before, so she just nods and spins around. 

Natalia is lying on the bolted down, looking almost dejected. Clint greets her in Russian, and she sneers at him. Her attention turns to the bag. Bobbi fishes out the comb before she forgets and holds the bag out. Unsure of what to say, she settles for, “Some toiletries.”

Natalia sneers again. Bobbi feels Clint shift behind her. He doesn't go into a tense fight position though, he just shifts until he's close enough she can feel his body heat. She feels his slow casual shrug. “We'll leave it here. If you want the comb, ask Agent Hill for it,” he tells Natalia. “Bobbi was just trying to be nice to you for some reason.”

Natalia says something in Russian and Clint replies. If Natalia feels anything, it doesn't show in her tone. Clint's tone, however, is that slow drawl he uses when someone's comment bothers him. The conversation goes on for several more minutes, with Bobbi trying to figure out what Natalia is saying. For a moment, she feels a flare of jealousy and tamps it down. There's clearly nothing friendly between her husband and his former partner nowadays, and the past can stay in the past. She just hates how easily she's been cut out of the conversation. She leaves the room abruptly, leaving the bag on the spare chair. It takes another ten minutes before Clint comes out. The metal door prevented her from hearing what went on inside the room, but his face says it ended with him yelling. “Where did you go?” he demands. She raises an eyebrow at him. “It was your idea. You just left.”

“I wasn't contributing anything to the conversation. That tends to happen when you don't speak a language.” 

Clint looks abashed for a moment. “Sorry. You didn't miss anything important. Just her usual vitriol.”

“Said without any emotion whatsoever.”

Clint sighs and exits the room. Bobbi blinks at his back and follows him silently, wondering what she said wrong. It was just the truth. He leads the way to her lab office and closes the door behind her. She settles into her chair and watches him pace around the room. It's not a big room. Her desk took up most of one wall, and bookshelves covered in papers she'd written or needed to reference from time to time covered the rest of them. But he managed to make the most of it. She waits silently, even as her curiosity and worry begin to get hard to ignore. Clint is a patient person; he has to be as a sniper. On a day to day he isn't as patient as he can be on a mission, but he's still not the type to pace. He sits and waits, with, at the very least, a veneer of calm even she can't see through sometimes. And she isn't as patient. To kill time, she reorganizes the papers on her desk three times. They end up in the same order she started in.

“Are you going to tell me what's upsetting you?” she asks eventually.

He stops, glances at her, sighs, and resumes pacing. She takes that as a no. Instead of pushing, she logs onto her computer and goes through her last mission statement one more time before submitting it. It had been mostly written under the influence of heavy painkillers and Barney's almost lethal cocktails, so she's unsurprised to realize half her report makes no sense. It's her own fault—she could have waited it out longer. She just wanted to get out of Poland as quickly as possible that she never stopped to think. Every agent does that at least once in their career, so no one would blame her, but she's usually more careful. And she could have not mixed alcohol and medicine.

She hears the door open and shut quickly. When she looks up, Clint is gone. She sighs to herself and turns back to her report.

–

“Are you planning on never talking to me again?” she asks at dinner. Clint hasn't spoken to her once. When she showed up at his desk to ask him if he was ready to leave, he just shut down his station and followed her. When she asked him if he was okay with sandwiches for dinner, he shrugged. When she asked him how his day was, he glanced up from his food and looked down quickly. “I don't read minds,” she says when he doesn't make any indication he heard her. “If you're trying to ignore me, it'd be more believable with your hearing aids out.”

“I'm not trying to ignore you,” he says automatically. Then he takes a bite of food and looks back down. 

Bobbi swallows down her irritation. Accusations or yelling will make Clint emotionally shut down or yell back. Either way, they will get nowhere for days. “Either I upset you with the truth about Natalia or you didn't like what I said.”

He shrugs. “It was true.”

She gets up and lets her plate clatter into the sink. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Clint flinch at the sound and murmurs an apology he probably can't hear. She scrubs the plate with more force than necessary, drops it into the drainer, grabs another soda, and perches on the counter to drink it. Clint finishes his sandwich while pretending she's not tracking his every movement.

He sighs and tosses his plate haphazardly into the sink. It doesn't sound like it broke, thankfully. Cleaning up broken glass is terrible. If she tells Clint to do it, he'll send it down the garbage disposal. She takes a long drink of soda and watches as he maneuvers around their kitchen table to her. It would be easier if their kitchen were larger. When he gets to her, she wraps her legs around his waist. 

“She showed emotion before, when no one was looking,” he says. “In Lyon, when our target's security killed a six year old girl. In Odessa where we didn't stop a bomb quickly enough. In Vienna… I don't know what happened there but she was crying and she only stopped when she heard me on the stairs. I thought maybe she'd have a different reaction.”

“She's in a prison cell and the only thing keeping her alive is the whims of a man who lost an eye because of her. It's understandable she's making no effort.”

“Yeah,” he breathes out almost inaudibly. He adjusts her legs around him and fiddles with the hem of her nightgown. Not in the usual way, the one where she knows she has about five seconds to tell him if she's not in the mood before it ends up on the floor. He seems to just want something to do with his hands. 

“You can try to talk to her some more. Find out what she knows. She won't give details, but maybe if you have some idea, Fury can be talked into giving her a deal. If you're right and she's capable of being more, maybe she'll want the chance.”

“She isn't really talking to me. I bring her food from that Russian place down the street from SHIELD once a week, and she eats it but she glares at me the whole time and doesn't talk.”

“I'll talk to her. We don't have a history worth worrying about.”

–

The next day dawns bright and early. Too early. Fury calls at sunrise to ask her if she's sure she didn't poison anything because Natalia's hair looked clean for once and he'd really like to know if he was about to have the death of a prisoner. She doesn't remember what she says but she hisses something suitably angry at him and throws her phone against the wall. Clint shifts like he's heard, but he doesn't sleep with his hearing aids, so he's probably just feeling her move. She strokes his cheek until he settles back into a deep slumber and curls closer to her. Her eyes are heavy with sleep and closing again when Clint's phone rings.

“Now what?” she hisses into the phone.

“You're not answering,” Fury says unrepentantly.

“I threw my phone against the wall.” She glances over. The light from the window is weak, but it reflects off of a dozen pieces. She untangles herself from Clint and drags herself into a sitting position. “And I've told you approximately eighty times I didn't poison anything. We're not all heartless dicks.”

“You love your low blows, Doctor.”

“Can't this wait until I get in?”

“I wasn't sure if you would be coming in. You have no open projects and you're not on call.” It's a lie. She and Clint always come in together when one of them is on call. Today, Clint's on call for the night shift. She'll be in at six pm with him, and Fury knows it. 

She doesn't call him out on it. It's never worth it. “I was going to talk to Natalia. If you don't need me any earlier, can I go back to sleep now?”

“I'll have a report waiting on your desk. And a new phone.” And Fury hangs up without a goodbye.

She tries to go back to sleep but it doesn't come. An hour later, she stumbles out of bed, takes as thorough a shower as she can with her cast, and drinks a pot of coffee. Sometime during her third cup she realizes Natalia gave them a lot of information. Not all she had, obviously, or else she would have bargained for amnesty or something bigger. But enough that Bobbi can't help but wonder what else Natalia knows that she could bargain with. As far as they could tell, she'd been working for the Red Room since about 1944. Sixty years of espionage gave her a lot of knowledge about networks SHIELD would want eradicated but the only two Natalia should have known about firsthand were the Red Room and the KGB. 

She's still contemplating it an hour later when Clint takes the empty coffee pot from in front of her, mutters hello, and spins around to the coffeemaker before she can respond. It's barely ten in the morning. They have an entire day to fill and Bobbi intends to go grocery shopping and cook real food in that time. She's sick of takeout and sandwiches. She signs, _What do you think Natalia knows?_ at him when he sits down across from her.

He blinks slowly at her as if he's trying to process the question. “Lots, I guess. What do you mean?”

_She gave us a lot already. How much more can she know?_

Clint shrugs. “I don't know. I don't want to know. Maybe she's bluffing.”

–

Bobbi goes in at four because she was driving Clint up the wall in the kitchen. She leaves him making a stew and goes in to read whatever Fury has planned for her. It's a mission brief and a research paper all in one. She calls Clint from her new phone to tell him she's in and accepts when he offers to bring her some stew to eat later. It's still warm out, but it's better than whatever the cafeteria will be serving. She reads the mission brief, skims through the research, and begins taking notes on how best to deal with it. The mission is standard enough—infiltrate a fundraiser gala and put a tracker on the target, Roman Steiner, so they can follow him to the lab. When they get to the lab things get more difficult. By all accounts, he uses too many unstable chemicals, and he has human test subjects.

She's just scribbling out possible scenarios for how it might go when Clint drops a bowl of soup on her desk. “Are you practicing stealth on me again?” she asks.

“Nope. I slammed the door coming in. You're just really absorbed in whatever you're doing.”

“Mission brief. Creepy scientist with human subjects.”

“Have fun. I'm on monitor duty.”

She bids him goodbye and turns back to the research paper. At some point, she takes a break to stretch and eat, but she goes back to it soon enough. The research is horrifying but fascinating. He's trying to fuse human and animal DNA in a way that would allow for the person to shift fully between human and animal and take on both traits in one form as well. It might even be a good idea if it weren't for the horrifying side effects shown in multiple cases. Most of the people who gave SHIELD information on him described him as a nice man who became obsessed with his work. Steiner was facing charges in Austria for what he did to one forcibly obtained human test subject, and the SHIELD agents were to extradite him there alive, if at all possible. 

It would be a team that would have to do this. She would have the backup of non-spy field agents and possibly one other spy if they should be needed. Early suggestions for the team show Clint as a possibility. It's the agency's policy to never have couples work together, but they work so well together that Fury has overrode that multiple times, usually only on the worst types of missions. He must think this counts.

Her desk phone rings. She looks up from the file. The clock reads midnight. She picks up the phone. “Morse.”

“Doctor, if you'd come down to the cells,” Maria Hill says in a clipped tone, “you might be able to keep your husband and Fury from throwing punches.”

Bobbi sighs, hangs up, and rushes down to the cells. Hill is looking beyond irritated. Clint has three long scratch marks along one cheek surrounded by a blossoming bruise. Natalia is curled into the corner of her cell, and her expression seems almost vulnerable. Fury is trying not to yell since he knows he won't get anywhere with Clint. It doesn't take long to put together what happened. Natalia attacked Clint. Fury is understandably unhappy about this turn of events. Or possibly incongruously happy. He wants her dead after all, and attacking a SHIELD agent while prisoner is a good way to lead to that. But it's pretty clear why Hill is irritated—neither man is listening to what the other is saying, and a few shallow scratches and a bruise isn't much of an attack, especially when Clint has a fully loaded gun on his hip in her easy reach.

Hill has her gun out, looking very much like she wants to shoot one of them. Bobbi squeezes her arm and whistles sharply. Fury spins to face her, his hand jerking his gun out in shock. Clint winces at the sharpness and turns a mildly annoyed glare at her, except he isn't scary enough to pull it off, so he ends up more looking like a scolded puppy. “Someone want to tell me what happened?”

They started talking over each other again, and she's pretty sure Fury just told her he gives the orders around here not her. She whistles again and cuts Fury off before he can say anything to match his agitated expression. “Out.”

“Last time I checked—” Fury starts.

“Last time _I_ checked neither of you are objective when it comes to Natalia. Director, you've crossed lines you never crossed with other prisoners, and if you're trying to tell me it's for everyone's own good, let me assure you every agent is this building knows you're lying. Natalia has been here for six months, and you've done nothing but deliberately prolong her stay under the guise of listening to what my husband has to say about her. And let me tell you what Clint has to say about her—ten year old stories that he might misremember because he wants to. Out, both of you. I want the cameras off. I'll talk to her, since neither of you can be trusted to.”

“We're not turning off—”

“Yes, we are,” Hill says. “I didn't come here to play babysitter to a spy and I didn't come here to pushed into a situation that occasionally veers into Guantanamo Bay territory. You're starving her. You're making sure she doesn't see sunlight or exercise or even movement. And she has a gunshot wound that never healed properly after you shot her because you pulled her out of medical. Just admit it, Fury, you're not being objective. At least Barton admitted that. And if you can't admit that, let me know so I can put in my resignation. I don't want to work at a place that tortures prisoners.”

There's four other guards in the room, guns drawn but unsure who to point them at. Fury glares at Hill, takes a deep breath and lets it out on a sigh, and says, “The guards are staying right outside the room. You've got fifteen minutes without cameras, Morse.”

“I'll let you know when they're out,” Hill says and she leads the rest of them out of the room. Clint lingers by the door for a second and tells Bobbi with quick flicks of his fingers, _I don't know why what I said upset her._

Bobbi just asks him to hand her the comb. When he's retrieved it, she kicks him out. Hill comes back seconds later to tell her the cameras are off. They have as much privacy as they can get in this building. 

“I'm going to comb your hair,” Bobbi says. Natalia says nothing as she sits down next to her and gently tugs her into position. It's been months since the last time her hair was combed, and her curls are now just tangles that span the length of her back. Bobbi spends a couple minutes just working the comb through the first knot, but she shouldn't waste her time. “Clint didn't mean to upset you.”

“By bringing that up?”

“By bringing what up?”

Natalia turns to her with an expression filled with vitriol. There's a pause while they both stare at each other, and then Natalia whispers, “How did he learn that?”

“Learn what?”

It takes a few seconds for her to respond. “About Gregor Avdonin.”

Bobbi combs through her mental list of Slavic bad guys but can't remember the name. “It doesn't ring a bell. Did he mention him by name?”'

A pause. “No.”

“Did he mention whatever happened directly?”

A longer pause, a softer “no.”

Bobbi can't get the knot free. She walks over to the bathroom and grabs the bottle of conditioner. She dumps some in the palm of her hands and says, “If Clint wanted to hurt you, you'd know.”

Natalia laughs bitterly. “Are you sure about that?”

“That's how he fights with everyone. Me, his brother, Fury. Clint doesn't miss his target, no matter what his weapon is. If he knows a weakness, he'll hit you right where you hurt most.”

“Sounds like a happy marriage.”

“Couples fight. I know he doesn't mean it. He's just learned if he doesn't attack first he's the only who'll get attacked.” The knot finally comes loose. She moves on to the next with a quick glance at her watch. They've already lost five minutes. “We don't have much time so let me give you some advice. There are three ways you can deal with this. You can talk to Clint and get him to drop his support of you. Most people think you're sleeping together, but as you've given us plenty of information and not caused any real problem while here, they've looked away from it. He's not entirely objective when it comes to you, but he's been right about most of your behavior so far. The World Security Council doesn't particularly like him since he's usually the first to point out their lack of field experience and their hypocrisy, but they follow the rules set before them. As long as you have the support of Clint, you can stay alive for a while. If he drops his support, you die. It'll be a single bullet, execution style. If you have any last requests that are reasonable, they'll be done to your instructions.

“Your second option is to take your case to the World Security Council. Fury technically reports to them. You can try to convince them your information is worth it, but you'll have to give up everything you know. And the end result might be the same. The Council isn't thrilled we're housing you. You were a kill mission, and you're only alive because Clint couldn't bring himself to kill you. Fury knew that before he sent him out, but I think he still hoped. God knows I did. I've never forgiven you for that scar.”

Natalia smiles. It looks like a gash in her face. “Pity. I had a lot of fun. It's been a while since I lost, Mockingbird.”

She isn't surprised to learn Natalia's known all along. “You didn't lose.”

“Neither did you. And it wasn't that bad of a wound.”

Bobbi unbuttons her blouse and tugs her bra aside to show Natalia the wound. Her face closes off for a second then goes back into a creepy smile. “It went deeper than I remember. Should I be afraid of your gifts?”

She does the buttons up as quickly as she can with fingers coated in conditioner. “Clearly you assessed the risk already or you wouldn't be using them.”

“The worst you can do is poison me.”

“They aren't poisoned. They were attempt to be nice.”

“What's my third option?”

Bobbi goes for Natalia's hair again. “Your third option is attempting to reason with Fury. The riskiest choice but ultimately your best bet if you want to stay alive. Unfortunately, anything you promise during negotiations he'll hold you to. Ideally, you would not only give up any information you have, but you would submit to a deprogramming of all known Red Room commands and therapy. You might also be called on to help during missions to take down someone you may know while prisoner. If you succeed at convincing Fury, you'll either end up working for us or they'll set you up with a new life somewhere else. No matter what, you'll pretty much be monitored until the day you die unless you prove we can trust you. If you betray us or commit any crimes again, you'll be neutralized.

“I'm sure you don't want to be a prisoner for the rest of your life,” Bobbi says as kindly as she can without sounding condescending. “So maybe it's not the best option in the world. But you're too dangerous for any other option.”

“Last time I checked, your agency was hunting Clint down. How did he come to work for you? Or was that a lie too?”

Bobbi takes a brief second to glance at her watch and wonder what else Clint lied about, unless Natalia was talking about whatever he told her to get her to let her guard down long enough to drug her. Three minutes. “No, that wasn't a lie. We hunted him down for three years. I was originally in charge of getting him. He was my first mission, and he proved much more difficult than I could handle. Within a couple months, Fury replaced me with one of our most senior agents. But I kept running into Clint and well.” Bobbi waved her wedding ring around. “Clint was the least dangerous on our wanted list. He never harmed a SHIELD agent, occasionally aided our missions, although he made sure he never hung around long enough to get caught himself, and he was killing people we already wanted dead. And he was killing because he was poor and uneducated with nowhere and nothing to turn to. Fury offered an exchange—whatever he knew about as many criminals as possible, including you, and five years of working for SHIELD. After that, he was free to go as long as he didn't commit any crimes.”

“It's been seven.”

“He has a ninety five percent success rate. Fury saw no reason to let him go. And Clint had no reason to leave.” Bobbi drags the comb through another tangle. “I hate to say this, but you're probably better off cutting your hair off.”

“You're the one who grabbed the comb.”

“I'm trying to be nice, but I'm not going to spend hours doing this. And apparently neither are you.”

“Fine. Let's cut it off. I don't care.”

The camera will be back on in seconds. Bobbi washes her hands and rinses the comb. She leaves it to dry on a towel and wets another one to clean off Natalia's hair. She pulls her knife out of her bra—no need to have it in a convenient place when at SHIELD—and gathers up the hair. Natalia is tense, and Bobbi is tenser. She's afraid Natalia will try to the knife from her. She has no idea if Natalia is tense in preparation for a fight or if she's simply understandably nervous to have an enemy's knife at a sensitive point. But Natalia doesn't reach for the knife, and Bobbi chops off a good fourteen inches and coils it around her fingers. “The salon by my house makes wigs for cancer patients, if you don't mind. She won't mind untangling it.”

Natalia shrugs indifferently.

Hill reenters the room. “The cameras are back on and your husband and Fury are nose to nose again.” She eyes the knife for a beat.

“Right. Watch her. I'm going to leave the comb if she wants to deal with the rest.”

–

Bobbi spends a week smoothing things over with Fury, who understandably isn't happy with her for undermining his authority, and making sure Clint is never in the same room with half of SHIELD, as Melinda informed her that the other agents have renewed their bets. Apparently, they've interpreted Natalia's attack as the attack of a spurned lover since the only other time she hit Clint was when she learned he was married. There are security cameras that cover every inch of the building, but no one with access bothers to check them. It's not as fun like that. Bobbi ignores everyone who looks at her with pity, and Clint temporarily sets aside his usual friendly personality for the sort of glares he gives to the few people he absolutely loathes. 

But gossip like that is insidious by nature. It should be harmless, but it roots itself deep into Bobbi's brain, and she can't help but ask him, “Did you love her?”

Tomorrow, they will both be on the mission to get Roman Steiner. Tonight, they pick at their food. As more information has come in about the mission and the final team was chosen, it has snowballed into something much more sinister. They have leftover stew and crusty bread from the bakery two streets over, but neither have them have eaten more than a few bites. It doesn't help that all Bobbi can think about is Natalia and Clint's partnership and how little she knows about it. She doesn't know much about Clint's freelance days besides that he killed lots of people, usually for good reasons. She's never asked the full details of his work. When he was captured by SHIELD, he only copped to murders committed with a bow and arrow and a couple of others. There were more he was suspected in, but he killed enough people it hardly mattered at that point. He'd given up information on the Black Widow but said very little about how they'd come into a partnership.

Clint is using his spoon to divide the vegetables in the stew into piles against the side of the bowl, a nervous gesture she hardly ever sees him do. He snorts when she asks and lets his spoon fall. There is no need to ask who 'she' is. “I'd like to think I've never done anything that would make you'd believe I'd be that stupid.”

“It's not—I like her, god help me.” She's been visiting twice a day for the last week. Natalia has begrudgingly accepted her visits and a large book of Russian folk tales with illustrations for amusement. Natalia has a dry sense of humor when she deigns to talk. “But—”

Clint gets up, dumps his stew back into the Tupperware it was in, and takes her bowl out from under her to do the same with. They both know she won't eat it. “Don't listen to the gossip,” he says as he puts it in the freezer. “Sofia and I never even liked each other. She only flirted with me because that's how she deals with men.”

“I never asked anything about that time.”

“You were around for most of it.” He brings the butter dish and two knives to the table and cuts up the rest of the bread. Bobbi takes a piece for herself and slathers it in butter. It goes down a lot easier than the stew. Her nervous stomach couldn't handle anything heavier.

“I'm just curious,” she says.

“No, you're not. You're hurt and you don't need to be. Someone was going to shoot her and she hadn't seen him. At least I think she didn't. So I shot him. Natalia's a firm believer in paying debts, real or imaginary, so in Guadalajara she saved me. And it kept going like that for a while until we ran into each other at the place of a guy we both got knives and various assistance from. I'm not sure how it turned into partnership. Our names started getting linked and people would hire us to work together. We were good together as long the mission didn't require us trusting each other. We never were in love. We never had sex. You don't need to be hurt.”

“I miss the days when you weren't so perceptive. I had to spell out why I was upset.”

“And you always held something back.”

“I didn't say it was a good system.”

“Is there anything you want to know?”

Bobbi shrugs and rips a piece of bread in half. “She seems very possessive of you.”

“Don't worry. That's changed for the right price before.”

“Do you really think she can change?”

Clint mechanically eats a few more pieces of bread, and when the loaf is almost gone, he finally says, “We don't know who she was before the Red Room. _She_ doesn't know who she was. I wasn't lying about—she's cried before. That has to mean she feels something.”

“She's not a psychopath, but that doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of things. She has no way to gain control of this situation and she knows it. If SHIELD had a different director, she may have charmed her way out of it, but Fury will do everything he can to keep her from surviving this.”

“Yeah I know.”

They finish the last couple of slices and she goes to get what's left of a lemon cake they bought the other day. She doesn't bother cutting it; they know how to share food after seven years of marriage. “So… you're saying there's absolutely no secrets there and I shouldn't be worried about you leaving me for someone else?”

“There aren't any secrets. I can tell you everything if you want. It just never seemed like a big deal to give details. And why would I leave you for someone like you? You shouldn't be worried I'll sleep with her. You should be worried Sofia will talk you into springing her and taking over the world with her.”

“I don't want to take over the world.” But even as she says it, she starts thinking up new laws. It's a disturbing realization, or it would be if she thought it would actually happen.

Clint laughs. “Your face says otherwise, Supreme Queen. You two better take me with you.”

–

The dress SHIELD finds for Bobbi to wear is a ballgown with a truly atrocious amount of details. The theme of the ball—themed parties are her least favorite type to infiltrate—is “modern day Victorian England.” She has skipped the corsets, the stomachers, crinolines, and bustles in favor of something more or less comfortable. Someone told her it resembled the fashions of the tail end of the Victorian Era, but she isn't well informed on fashion in general, let alone fashion from a century ago. The fabric is draped in dozens of baubles and yards of lace, and crystals dot her neckline. A neckline that in danger of exposing her if she tries to make any sort of intense move, so tonight she'll have to rely on her backup if something goes wrong. Luckily, her backup is Rebecca Majors, who trained her, and Clint. They both have managed to escape being in the ballroom, but they're outside where the rain is freezing in the cold. Even without the increasing pressure and creepy research coming in, this will probably be in Clint's list of least favorite missions ever. 

Her necklace hides a camera but unfortunately doesn't cover any of her breasts. Her earrings won't stop getting tangled in her hair, which is done in an elaborate style that seems to be comprised of curled hair wrapped in ribbons and combs. She dances with a few men, chatters inanely about the French Riviera to a couple with a summer home there, and tries caviar for the first time. She hates fish, so it isn't much of a surprise that she hates it, but everyone else is eating it. There's an interim in the partying for overwrought speeches to solicit money, and Bobbi uses her champagne glass to hide her smile as she listens to Rebecca and Clint grumpily mock them. 

After the speeches, she focuses her attention on Roman Steiner. The man has been charming his way through the ladies all night. It's not difficult for him. He's handsome, and his outfit draws attention to his tall stature. She can't remember the last time she saw a scientist in such good shape, especially a man over fifty. Most of the ones she knew spent hours scarfing down unhealthy food if they even remembered to eat. She makes flirty eyes at him a couple times and turns her attention to other men. He takes the bait. Within two dances, he's made her way over to her. “I've never seen you here before,” he says. “I'm Roman.”

“Alexandria.” He kisses the hand she offers him, and she feels the urge to roll her eyes, but that's not in character. “I've never been. I thought I'd spend my inheritance on something sure to make my parents roll over in their graves.”

“And a fund for evolutionary science counts?” he asks, masking his skepticism under a layer of suave charm. 

“They were creationists.”

He laughs. His eyes stray to her breasts. Clint makes a noise somewhere between amusement and disgust. She touches her finger to ear under the guise of pushing aside a curl to get her husband to shut up. When he does, she smiles at Steiner. “What about you? What's your reason?”

The man pulled out a business card. Bobbi bites her lip in a manner she hopes comes across as flirtatious, even though it's actually the desire to burst out laughing. Dr. Roman Steiner, MD, PhD. “Nice to meet you, Doctor Steiner. Does this mean you can explain to me what I'm donating eight hundred thousand to?”

“Of course. Shall we chat over some food?”

Bobbi dutifully follows him to the raised platform where the buffet table is. Most of the food is made with fish—caviar, lobster, crab, and little salmon bites—so she randomly chooses at whatever doesn't look like fish. She ends up with bite sized pieces of chicken, something vaguely resembling a hot dog, a vegetable skewer, and cheese. She picks up another glass of champagne and allows Steiner to chat her ear off. To his credit, he doesn't dumb down the material too much—she's fairly sure she sounds like that when trying to explain things to Clint—but there's information missing, something only another biologist would know. And, if the informant was right, that missing information was the link to something terrible.

The night ends with her feeding him a bite of prosciutto and fig bread laced with balsamic vinegar, honey, and the world's smallest tracking device. It'll attach itself to the inside of his stomach and dissolve in about ten weeks. They exchange numbers and goodbyes, and she heads back to the SHIELD safe house to scrub herself clean.

–

The tracking device puts him in a hotel for the night. Rebecca offers to take the first shift of monitor duty since “it'll take me that long to warm up again.” Bobbi bids her goodnight and retreats to one of the rooms with two cups of hot chocolate. Clint is about as warm as Rebecca—he's wrapped in a sweatshirt with the SHIELD insignia on it, two pairs of pants, two pairs of socks, and he's sitting curled up near the heater.

“You're getting coddled,” she jokes. “You used to be able to be out in the cold in threads.” But it isn't really a joke. She remembers Clint at nineteen very clearly. He wore clothes he'd long since grown out of, kept together by a handful of fraying threads and willpower. He'd been skinny, with the haunted hollow look of someone who didn't eat enough. She'd been amazed he'd managed the strength to pull back on the bow. 

Clint gives her a kicked puppy look and reaches for the hot chocolate. She hands him one of the cups and pulls a blanket from the closet. She wraps it around his shoulders and he nuzzles her stomach in silent thanks. She settles down on the floor next to him. Across from them, the window is streaked with icy rain. It hasn't let up. “Our anniversary is in two months,” she muses out loud. “I was thinking we could take off and go somewhere.”

“If we're still alive.”

She ignores him. “I say Finland. We've never been. Well, I've never been. Have you killed anyone in Finland?”

“Yeah. I buried him under eight feet of fucking snow and got frostbite. How about Cancun?”

“Sunbathing is unhealthy.”

“So's espionage.”

“Skin cancer would be painful.”

“Getting tortured isn't? Besides, medical probes at us so much I doubt it'll go unnoticed long enough to be a problem.”

“Fair enough. Do you think we could swing the time off?”

Clint polishes off his cup. She hands him the other one. He kisses her fingers when he takes it from her, settling the empty cup on the floor. “Probably not,” he decides. “We took three weeks off at the beginning of the summer, remember?”

“Hmm good point.” Given how much downtime field agents have in between missions, their vacation time is essentially nonexistent. She is momentarily distracted by memories of those three weeks, which were mostly comprised of them having sex in various locales across California. “I've always wanted to see Finland,” she says, forcing her thoughts back to the present. She doesn't have to look at Clint to know he's eying her like she's lost it. “It could be nice. Picturesque.” Everything is picturesque when they need the tourism though. New York City definitely isn't as pretty as the pictures she saw in a travel guide on a mission in Spain.

Clint doesn't bother to comment though. “How're you feeling?” he asks. “You don't take a shower for that long unless you're grossed out.” She also doesn't take showers alone when he's around, even on missions, but he doesn't mention that. 

“He's forcibly fusing human DNA with animal DNA. Intel says he's got thirty test subjects locked in an underground bunker. All people who won't be missed.” She's not telling him anything new. He probably has the mission brief memorized. Clint has never given SHIELD any reason to be disappointed in his performance. 

“And?”

“And that's horrible. And it's not the worst person I've had to seduce.” It was determined that Steiner might want to make contact with her again after the initial meeting, so she had to open to the possibility something would happen. “I threw up the first mission I worked where I had to seduce someone. Second,” she corrects. “I guess you were the first. Kind of.” He'd seen the SHIELD agents lurking around and disappeared right as she'd managed to get his attention. It hadn't taken him long to realize she was with them. “The second guy—have I ever told you this?”

Clint shrugs, as if he doesn't remember one way or the other if she did.

“The second guy was smuggling children out of North Korea and girls out of China, promising their parents he'd place them up for adoption in Europe and the Americas. The prostitution ring spanned eight countries, thirty known crime syndicates and families, and multiple politicians. But we didn't know where the central command was so—Same thing I had to do tonight really. Make him eat a tracking device. Except he kissed me, and the first thing I did when he left was throw up into the flowerpot near me. I wasn't actually sure I'd make it that long. Whoever was directing the mission told me to relax while the guy kissed me or I'd look like I didn't want it.” Clint silently hands her the last of the hot chocolate. She gulps down the last bit thankfully as if it would erase the memories. “I wish I wasn't becoming numb to this. The first time I killed someone I had nightmares for days. Now I go home and sleep even better than before.”

“No you don't. You kick out in your sleep.”

“I don't!”

“Yeah you do. Why do you think I always end up on the edge of the bed?”

“With all the covers.”

“You still wake up warm.”

“Maybe I'm kicking the covers off.”

He glances outside. It's no longer icy rain but full blown snow, even though it's only October. She can't see much else but white. “You probably won't be doing that tonight, doll.”

–

Steiner contacts her the next morning. He's dressed in dark jeans and a button up shirt overlaid with a sweater and long coat. She's wearing high heeled boots to show off her legs and a low cut top that guarantees his attention. They chat over coffee and pastries. On the other side of the room, Rebecca and Clint share a pot of tea and cucumber sandwiches. A few more agents lurk outside—Ramona Larkin and John Anderson are lingering over newspapers and magazines across the street, and a couple of non-spy field agents are on the street, looking over the bus map and arguing low in French. She has no idea if it's a real argument or for show. 

Steiner makes every effort to be as charming as possible. She makes every effort not to throw up. She nibbles at a croissant—not freshly baked; this isn't France or even a bakery—and smiles politely as he talks about his work and asks her out to dinner. They learn nothing new about his work, no matter what she asks him. So she accepts dinner, leaves alone, catches a bus to a shopping center, and waits around. Clint and Rebecca show up ten minutes later, her perpetual back up on this mission. They linger for a while, going in and out of stores and occasionally purchasing things. Ramona's voice crackles over their comms an hour in to tell them where Steiner went. When they leave, the field agents are there, still arguing over the bus system. They're eating some sort of meat filled pasty and drinking ale. Rebecca gives them a disapproving look over the alcohol but they shrug it off. 

The coordinates lead them to an open field with little coverage. They scramble any cameras in the area and move as a solid group around what appears to be a perimeter. In the spring or summer months, it might have been a pretty place, but winter has taken its toll. Bobbi slips over the icy ground, supported only by good balance until Clint gets sick of her slowing them down and picks her up. She glares, but she's not eager to try to balance on the mud with four inch heels, so she just readjusts herself so she has a better view of the terrain. 

“This is the most isolated villain warehouse I've ever seen,” Rebecca comments. 

“Warehouse?” Clint asks. “I don't think he's storing anything.”

“Humans count.”

“To psychopaths.”

They circle around until they come to a greenhouse. The glass is fogged, both by design and weather, but they slip in easily enough. 

“These are poisonous plants,” one of the field agents, Hector, says. “My grandma used to grow them in her garden until my uncle got sick off them one day. I heard that story all the time growing up.”

“Which ones?”

He points to the ones he means, but Clint is staring at another one in the distance, and Bobbi recognizes three as poisonous. They both share their realizations out loud at the same time. Rebecca points out another one. It doesn't take them long to realize every single plant is poisonous. Hector and his partner, Roger, slip on gloves and take a leaf from each plant. As they're finishing, a car crunching along the icy grass sounds. They slip away easily enough.

–

Bobbi wriggles herself into a dress that has about a hundred buttons down the back. Clint does them up for her with steady hands. Hers are shaking. With the coordinates, they were able to hack into the security cameras around the place and could see what was going on. The images of people being half human or half rotted away by poisons would probably haunt her for life. 

As steady as Clint's hands were, she knew he wasn't in much better shape. He learned young how to hide what he really felt. He'd spent the afternoon making jokes, although he couldn't seem to find any when it came to her dinner with Steiner. She would be alone. Everyone else would go to the warehouse and dismantle it. Fury sent another two backup teams and a medical team from the nearest base. They spent three hours planning, eventually deciding to do it tonight. Bobbi could be the distraction. She agreed it was best. And it is. But she's still nervous about being alone with the man.

Usually, Clint might offer up some sort of joke or a platitude, but he couldn't seem to find anything to say. He was dressed already in full tactical gear with his bow and quiver waiting at the foot of the bed, next to the knives and guns she'll have to hide under her dress. He finishes the buttons, helps her with the clasp of a necklace, and begins handing her weapons. She tucks them all away and turns to him.

“Breathe,” he says. His hands run over her arms soothingly. “You've faced worse.”

“And I usually work alone.”

“Yeah.”

“Which means no one gets to see how scary that is sometimes.”

“I'm sorry.”

“No, it's okay. Medical has those anti-poison and anti-drug shots to give me. You guys can take care of the warehouse lab. I have my comm and a tracking device in case you need to find me.” While it wasn't required by SHIELD, they offered to put a tracking device in an agent's tooth, like a filling, if they wanted it. Since she usually worked alone, she played it safe and got it. Clint, even though he works alone too, didn't when it became his choice—he was required to the first five years since he'd been a prisoner. He felt uncomfortable having his every move tracked after that.

Clint pulls her close. She buries her face into his neck, and he takes the opportunity to feel her up. For a moment, she isn't sure if he's checking for the weapons or just being his usual self, but then he says, “I can feel the knife at your back.” She pulls away a little to readjust it. The buttons should hide most of the bumps, and the Kevlar bodysuit she's wearing in place of underwear should push it down enough. It takes a few tries before she wedges it enough so he can't feel it anymore. She kisses him and moves away. 

“How do I look?” She turns back to the mirror. The dress is strapless, peplum, and cuts into her breasts because they didn't have much time to find and tailor one. Other than that, it fits pretty well. On other night, it might be a date night dress, not that she and Clint had many of those. And usually, her clothes were jeans and a shirt stolen from him. 

“Panicked. And hot.” Clint eyes her breasts like he's half-hoping they'll pop out. She hopes not. 

“Eyes up.”

“Ready to go?” Rebecca says, popping into the doorway. “Or do you need an orgasm first?”

–

In the restaurant, Bobbi eats chicken slowly and tries not to throw up. The shots SHIELD gives to fend off poisons have always made her stomach churn and tonight is no different. Steiner doesn't seem to notice, though, as he chatters incessantly about some historical site not far off from her that she's never heard of. She isn't sure it actually exists. When she repeats it while pressing her comm link—a plea for someone to tell her what was going on—she hears one of the local agents say, “That's a myth I thought.” Only her husband seemed to pick up on what she really wanted, and he murmured, “We're getting in place around the warehouse.” After that, radio silence from them. 

The restaurant is warm, and Bobbi eventually takes off the shawl she was using to help hide her breasts. She shrugs it off while Steiner is talking about a mural done in shades of green depicting some long ago battle and turns back to find his attention exactly where she expected it to be. He's still talking, using art terms she can't be bothered to ask about, eying her in the same way Clint was earlier. She feels a wave of revulsion wash over her and grins through it. “I don't know much about art,” she says in response to Steiner's look. “But you sure sound like an intelligent man.”

“I prided myself on a vast knowledge back in my schooldays.”

“You aren't going to lecture me, are you?”

“Not unless you want one.”

“I think I'll just take more wine.”

–

She wakes up tied to something. The back of her head throbs, and she remembers the blow after a few seconds. Testing the restraints pulls at her arms given how tightly they hold her, and they aren't rope or handcuffs. She shakes them slightly; they rattle against something. Metal chains. She twists her head and pain shoots down her neck and back. She breathes through the spasms until they go away. Her comm crackles and Rebecca says, “Come in, Mockingbird. Come in,” but she can't reach the button on the comm to respond, not matter how hard she tries. She pulls one of her muscles trying, breathes through the pain again, and settles for trying to work herself out of the chains. Getting out of bonds is spying 101, but it can take time, and she doesn't know how much she has.

The room is small with no light except for what's coming in through the window, and it isn't much with the bad weather. She can see the corners of the room. It looks clean and empty except for whatever she's lying on. Her wrists start bleeding after a few minutes. At least her dress stayed up, although with the way she's wiggling that won't last long. Her coat is gone, along with her scarf and her purse. They'd been leaving when he'd struck her as he helped her with her coat. She hadn't been expecting him to do it. She thought he'd have a partner. 

The comm bursts into sound again, this time none of it aimed at her. She can hear multiple voices overlapping, shouting orders, curses, and, “Hawkeye's down!” which makes her stop struggling for a moment before she remembers Clint is far too stubborn to die. Then, Rebecca's voice again, yelling, “Who the fuck sent Hawk there alone?” and Hector saying, “He sent himself.” Rebecca's “stupid stubborn idiot” is cut off. Bobbi assumes she stopped holding the button down on her comm because it's hard to do in the middle of a fight; the alternative is she got hit.

She gets one chain off and pauses, waiting for the loud clunk it made when it feel to draw someone's attention. After a couple of minutes, no one comes, so she starts again. Chains two and three drop in succession, and she takes another moment to wait it out and to give her arms a rest. Four and five drop together, and six she slides to the floor. She stretches her arms and feels for her weapons—all present and accounted for. She takes her gun out and cocks it. No one comes. It's silent outside the door when she presses her ear to it. She says into her comm, “I was knocked out and taken. What's going on there?”

Hector responds nonchalantly, “Your boy tried to get himself killed, same as always.”

Ramona adds, “We're loading up the subjects. Do you need a rescue, Mockingbird?”

“I'll let you know.”

“We'll keep an eye on your dot. Your tracking device is still online. You're still in the city. Doesn't look far from the restaurant.”

“And my weapons are on me. I don't think I was made.”

“From what we have here, you might be someone he wants to experiment on. A lot of women here look like you.”

Bobbi swallows down the bile. “Noted.”

She checks the window. She can't see anything but grayish sleet and snow. Opening the window and bracing herself against the cold does nothing but get her whacked across the cheek with a branch. She closes the window quietly and creeps out into the hallway. Empty, no cameras in sight. None in the room either. She takes off her shoes and edges along the hall. There's a table with flowers on it and art hanging on the walls. She moves along further. There's another room. When she peeks in, she sees a clock stating the time, 2:28, in florescent blue letters. They left the restaurant at midnight, and she'd been awake at least a half hour. Not too hard of a blow then. Not one meant to put her down all night. She's more worried about why it took the team so long to take down the warehouse lab.

Steiner's fast asleep in the bed, not even shifting when she steps on a creaking floorboard. The room is personal enough that she knows it's not a hotel room. She sneaks out and moves along to the staircase. Another creaky step, and no one comes. He's a heavy sleeper, and she takes the risk that no one else is here and bolts for the door. In the living room lays her coat and purse. She picks them up, checks them for bugs, and slips the coat. The purse is nothing more than a wallet with petty cash, a credit card and ID under a fake name, some gum, and a nail file. She takes the wallet in case she needs money and flees. The alarm goes off when she opens the door, but she already has flown into the night. 

She makes a note of the address when she reaches the corner, just in time to see a half-asleep Steiner stumble out of his house with a gun. She slips out into the night.

–

Clint took four bullets to the chest, one in the shoulder, and three knife slices to the leg. He also has various bruises on his face and torso. Bobbi sinks into the chair next to his bed and readjusts the ice pack medical gave her for the bruise on her head. “What happened?” she asks Rebecca. “I thought you'd have it done when dinner was over.”

“An experiment was going on when we got there. We made the decision to wait it out in the dark and see if we could prove what he was doing. He had his assistants working on trying to fuse butterfly wings to a woman's back. Her bones were malformed. It looks like they'd been shattered and parts removed it make the shape. We took photograph evidence and took that down first. It took longer than we expected. We shouldn't have sent you with Steiner. I thought without him nothing would be happening but he had ten helpers doing things. We didn't understand the biology. Your husband had to do his best to remember what you'd explained to him and apply it.”

Clint had never been as stupid as he pretended to be, but even though sciences in general wouldn't ever be his strong point, he could handle it if the situation called for it. “I'm sorry. I thought we didn't see anybody on the cameras.”

“Not your fault. We didn't see anybody there at all. We checked the cameras from the van, and there wasn't anything going on. No cars when we got there. We ran a week's worth of tape and we couldn't see any of these people. I don't know where they came from. Ramona and John are checking all the cameras in the area to see if they walked over.”

“And Steiner?”

“Detained. Hector and Roger went to the address posing as law enforcement and took him out. He cried like a baby when he came to. The money has been pulled from his bank account. From what we can tell, the ball you went to was a legitimate attempt to raise money for the sciences by good people. Steiner's official research seems to be something on animal mutations caused by the damage to the environment.”

Bobbi reviews the conversations she had with him about his work. “I could see where it would be believable to someone without the necessary background.”

“News broke this morning that he'd been arrested for illegal practices. The couple that held the ball were horrified. The police got involved in it, but they've turned him over to us fully. Tonight's news story will be on how many governments wanted him. He's outrunning a charge in Portugal too.” Rebecca brushes a stray curl from Bobbi's face in a motherly fashion. “How are you?”

“Tired. This was a mess.”

“Not as much as it could have been.”

“The human test subjects are where?”

“We're leaving them here. This is a small SHIELD base but it's mostly full of scientists and doctors. A lot of experiments are tested here because of its location. They'll try to undo what they can. The woman's bones, for example, can be fixed. If not… these people are mostly homeless or prostitutes. They won't be missed. SHIELD will give them an injection for a quick painless death and bury them.”

“I should have known.”

“And Clint killed one of them. Mercy kill. The guy's brain and heart were half eaten away. I don't have your PhD but I'm pretty sure that one couldn't be fixed.”

Bobbi grimaces. 

“Go rest. Someone will let you know if Clint wakes up tonight, but I wouldn't count on it.”

–

Natalia has a healthier glow about her when Bobbi gets back. She brings with her a collection of various books in Russian recommended by the overenthusiastic clerk at the bookstore and some food from the Russian restaurant Clint bought from. She'd gone with little idea on what to get, but the man there recognized the story she told him about a friend and described Clint to her and asked her if that was her husband. On her yes, he told her what he usually got it and asked after Clint. She told him he'd been mugged and was hospitalized for a couple days, promised to pass on the well wishes, and received the usual order. She had no idea which one was whose.

Natalia perks up at the sight of the food. Cafeteria food must not be cutting it for her. She takes the books, all paperbacks, much thinner and less dangerous than the fairytale book that Fury had issues with, and eyes the food all throughout her polite greetings.

Bobbi hands both plastic containers over. “Clint's been shot. He's still in Eastern Europe. They're not sure he'll transfer well. So… I have no idea what either of those things are. They just told me that's his usual order.”

“And you took a hit,” Natalia says, glancing at the bruise on the back of Bobbi's neck.

“I got knocked out. Clint tried to get an entire clip loaded into his chest. Through Kevlar.”

“Are armor piercing bullets illegal where he got shot?”

“I'm not sure. It doesn't matter anyway, considering what else was going on in that building.”

“This is Clint's,” Natalia says, handing her back a plastic container that looked like it contained bread. “Coulibiac.”

“What's in it?”

“Rice and fish.”

Ugh, fish. Bobbi makes a face. “Do you want it?”

“Do you not?”

“I don't eat fish.”

Natalia takes it back. Bobbi sits in the chair and watches her eat for a few minutes.

“What will happen if Clint dies?” Natalia asks after a few minutes. 

“He's not going to die,” Bobbi says automatically. Then, actually processing the question, she adds, “He'll be buried. SHIELD agents have their wills written the moment they sign on. Or did you mean for you?”

“Yes.”

“He didn't drop his support of you, so you'd be kept alive for a while. Someone can either step up to support you, you can make a deal, or in a month or so you'd be killed. But he won't die. The prognosis is good. They're more worried about permanent damage to his shoulder preventing him from using a bow again. Luckily, he wasn't awake to hear that.”

Natalia snorts. Clint's attachment to his bow is well known.

“Besides,” Bobbi adds, “I'd support you.”

“A last wish of your dead husband?”

“No. Because I think you deserve a second chance.”

“You and your husband are the only ones to think that.”

“He thinks that because he saw you crying once. Psychopaths don't cry except to manipulate. And you stopped when you heard his footsteps. Not a great reason to think you deserve another chance.”

“And you?”

“I have less reason. I want to know who you would be without the Red Room.”

“I'll always have the Red Room.”

“You won't have their commands embedded in your brain. You won't have only their training.”

“Are you trying to make a good person, Mockingbird?”

“We're in the wrong place for good people. I'm trying to make a monster of your own creation instead of someone else's.”

–

Bobbi goes to Boston for the weekend to visit Barney and inform him his brother has nearly died again. It's happened so often that she doesn't even need to say anything when he opens the door to his apartment. “Again?” he asks, the question almost a whine. “Have your therapists ever labeled him as suicidal? Because I think they should.”

“They have actually.” She steps inside when he gestures her in. “They think his penchant for running in front of bullets is a subconscious desire to die.”

“And you think?”

As she hangs up her coat and scarf she thinks about the question. “I think Clint would have been happy to die. He's only recently stopped having nightmares weekly and he hardly ever downs sleeping pills with alcohol anymore. So maybe not anymore. Maybe it's habit.”

Barney pours her a drink that seems to be one part hot tea and eight parts rum. She sits down at his rickety table taped together with duct tape and eyes the rest of the décor. She's pretty sure it looked better last time she was here. Of course, that had been four years ago. Usually Barney comes to visit them. “I'm buying you a new table while I'm here and don't argue with me.”

He sets a bakery bag in front of her and rolls his eyes. “Chocolate croissant. And they work. We had worse growing up.”

“And you're not children anymore. Do you have plans?”

“Nope. I'm all yours today, sis.”

“Great. Let's go before the alcohol kicks in.”

She drags him through the furniture store at the nearest mall. They find a nice table, some chairs, and a sofa that isn't sagging from broken wood in the middle. Then she drags him clothes shopping.

“What's wrong with my clothes? They don't have holes.”

“It's forty degrees out and you're wearing the world's thinnest jacket.”

“I've seen thinner.”

“Do you own a winter jacket?”

“Of course,” he says in the same way Clint does when he's lying.

She rolls her eyes. “Last time I heard that tone, Clint was telling me he totally made the cupcakes right.”

Barney grins. “He can't bake.”

“He knew he forgot to put something in.”

“Okay, I don't have a winter jacket. I walk to work two blocks away. It's not that bad.”

“I'm getting you winter clothes.”

“Why?”

“That's what family does.”

–

Clint comes back to Natalia having made a deal with Fury. How she swung it is still unknown. The only people in the room had been the two of them, Hill, and the deputy director Jonathan McKay. Natalia spends eleven days pretty much locked in a room giving information. Bobbi is there for that, at Natalia's request. She thought Fury would have a bigger issue with a prisoner in a bad spot requesting things, but he's of the mind that anything that would make Natalia cooperate is welcome. He expects a trick. 

Clint joins them on day five, moving slowly and irritated at her for locking up his bow. He could pick the lock if he really wanted to but he won't. Last time he had damage to his shoulder, he nearly ruined it permanently by picking up his bow too soon. He'll either heed the warning or she'll break the damn bow. His anger at that would be small compared to years of his complaining for not being able to shoot.

Natalia gives up information on practically every bad guy SHIELD is looking for. Bobbi also learns who Gregor Avdonin is. She didn't know because they didn't know his real name. Fury looks pissed by the end of it. Bobbi's sure he was wishing she wouldn't know enough. 

She spends two weeks traveling through various places and double checking Natalia's information. Other than hearing a hit out on the Black Widow—which is entirely unsurprising, given how dangerous she is—she learns nothing new. The hit was ordered under a known alias of Gregor Avdonin. He was KGB and very loyal, but her departure didn't seem to be the reason. It was ten years too late, for starters. Natalia first partnered with Clint weeks after leaving the KGB. 

She comes back to New York to snow and Clint teaching Natalia how to shoot a bow. She knows that part of the deal was Natalia actually seeing sunlight and exercise, but she can't imagine how they got Fury to agree to putting a weapon in her hand.

“Good afternoon,” she calls out, eying them from the other side of the room. 

Clint spins at the sound of her voice and lights up. He meets her halfway across the room, curls his good arm around her, and gives a deep kiss. She sinks into the kiss for a few moments then pulls away. “Okay, what did you do to your arm?”

His shoulder was shot, but his entire arm is now wrapped in stiff fabric, not gauze. Clint's expression turns sheepish and he scratches at the back of his neck while he tries to come up with an excuse. Bobbi grabs his hand and leads him over to Natalia. “Do you know what happened to his arm?”

“I didn't do it.”

“I didn't say you did.”

Natalia focuses on aiming a very blunt arrow at the target. It hits two rings outside the bulls-eye, where a cluster is. “He tried to shoot. Your medical team is very annoyed with him. Fury's been keeping him here on base like a misbehaving puppy.”

“So the wrapping is for?”

“Mostly makes sure he can't bend the arm to shoot. Someone checks up on him as often as they check in on me. I assume now that you're back, he's officially your problem again.”

“And this was the compromise?”

“I didn't actually ask Fury,” Clint says. “But there's cameras everywhere so I assume he knows about it. And those arrows only leave bruises. If she wants to kill someone, she'll have to use her thighs.”

“I can strangle people with my hands too,” Natalia says.

“You say that but no one's ever seen it.”

Natalia shoots off another arrow. It hits in the same cluster as all the others. She makes a face and goes to rip the arrows out of the target. Bobbi and Clint watch her shoot off three arrows and hit the same area. Her frustration is palatable. 

“And Hill knows,” Clint says, turning back to Bobbi. “So I won't be the only one in trouble.”

“I told myself I'd break your bow if you tried to use it.”

“Nothing happened so you don't have to do that.”

“I might anyway. For fun.”

Natalia laughs. It seems genuine and it's a pretty sound.

Bobbi picks up another bow. Clint taught her how to shoot years ago but she's mostly forgotten it now. She has no cause to use it on missions, and the days they have off and can spend together are usually spent with one of them injured. If neither of them are, or if the injuries are nothing more than bruises, they focus on being together in normal ways—walking the park, going to places they'd like to check out, nice dinners. They don't spend time at SHIELD, using weapons like it's all they are.

She sets herself up next to Natalia. She's chosen the same blunt arrows, partially because she doesn't want to put sharp objects in front of Natalia and partially because she hasn't shot in five years and doesn't want to hurt herself. She raises the bow and lets Clint adjust her arm in the same way he's always done. She's never gotten the movement right. Holding a bow is natural for Clint and even Natalia seems to have picked it up easily, but a bow has always felt bulky and out of place in Bobbi's hand.

“Are you tormenting him?” Natalia asks casually after a few seconds. “He looks pained.”

“He doesn't like the way I shoot,” she says, and she lines up the shot and ignores the appraisal from her right. She doesn't need to be told she's too awkward with the bow. She knows it. Clint knows it. It's why their lessons were mostly cut short. Sex was far more fun for them both. It's why she hasn't touched it in five years, and the last time had only been when Clint had been knocked out and she'd run out of bullets and knives and it wasn't close range. She'd done a decent job shooting, but that was mostly because of adrenaline and fear. 

“You're being allowed to leave the base under the watch of two high ranking agents,” Bobbi says after she's used up the quiver and managed to hit the target twice, neither of them anywhere near the bulls-eye. 

“And?”

“I was wondering if you'd like to have dinner with Clint and me. We're high ranking enough.”

Natalia's next shot misses the target completely, even though she'd made it almost to the bulls-eye. 

“It'll be fun,” Clint says cheerfully. Natalia aims a look at him and he adds, “Or it'll be horrible. But you'll be out of the base for a while. It might improve your mood. It does mine.”

“So does your wife apparently. Or is that because now that she's back you won't have to be here all the time?”

“Hey, I'm standing right here,” Bobbi says, trying to keep her voice neutral. “You don't have to come. And we're taking a prisoner transportation car because I don't want you to know exactly where we live. I thought you'd prefer a night out.”

Natalia shoots again. She hits the bulls-eye, goes to rip out the arrows, and puts them all away. “I don't think so,” she says eventually. “I'm ready to go back to my cell.”

“The offer stands,” Bobbi calls behind her as Clint leads her away.

–

Fury calls her into his office two weeks later. During this time, they've confirmed Natalia's information as true enough (there was a minor discrepancy but that happened recently) and sent out multiple teams. Their wanted list has knocked off at least a dozen people. And Fury isn't happy because he doesn't want the Black Widow here.

“I see you haven't talked your husband out of his sessions with Romanova.”

“The blunt arrows are harmless. And I've noticed no one's bothered to remove the sharper arrows from the room despite the fact only Clint uses it and he currently can't.”

“Not that he hasn't tried. You've been shooting too.”

“I'm keeping her company.”

“She has Barton for that.”

“And she has me.”

“Are you claiming her side?”

“I'm on my own side, just like you. Just like her.”

Fury leans back and studies her. She holds his gaze. “Is that how it is?” he asks after a moment.

“You know my husband has never trusted a single word that's come out of your mouth.”

“And you agree with him?”

“I've never had any reason to disagree.”

“Why are you saying it now?”

“I'm just saying.”

Fury makes a sound somewhere between a laugh and a disbelieving scoff. “I have to deal with a situation in the South American bases. Hill's in charge of keeping Widow from murdering everyone in their sleep. If Widow takes you up on your offer for dinner, take Hill with you.”

“Yes, sir. Is that all?”

He leans across the desk, closer to her. “Morse, you're one of the most intelligent people I have here. Don't be sucked in by the Widow.”

“I don't trust her. I don't trust my husband's faith in her. But I believe in second chances.”

“Do you?”

“Given what the Red room did to her.”

“She did it on her own too.”

“She didn't know any better. I know more than you do the effect men can have a young girl's life, whether she wants it or not. She's the Red Room's, body, mind, and soul because she's never been herself. I know what it's like not knowing who you are and what you'd do if you could only make that decision. Give her a shot. She may surprise you.”

“Or she may not.”

She shrugs. “At least it'll be her choice this time.”

–

Natalia agrees to dinner the Saturday after Fury leaves, but they move it up to brunch since there's no time constraint on how long she can be out. If she comes earlier, she can leave later, since she does have to be back before ten. Hill brings her over at eleven in the morning, where Bobbi has decided to set out an array of foods, not knowing either woman well enough to know what they eat. All she had checked for is allergies. 

But brunch is cut short by the awkwardness. Natalia spends the entire time judgmental of their décor—mostly prints found in various places around the world on white walls and green furniture—and she picks at the food as if it's laced with poison. Hill takes her back by one, and Bobbi spends the rest of the afternoon gorging on food and feeling vaguely irritated. Clint joined her at first, but he'd given up on trying to eat more around three and disappeared into the spare room in the back where they kept something resembling a gym. She eats the last of fruit salad, berates herself for gorging, and goes to find Clint, who's now in their bedroom, undoing the bandages on his arm. 

“I'm going for a walk,” Bobbi announces. “Want to come with me?”

He pauses in his struggle to untangle the wrapping from the actual bandage and tilts his head to the side, an indication he didn't hear her. She signs it to him instead and he agrees, jerking off the last of the wrapping and searching for appropriate winter wear that isn't laced with Kevlar. They have surprising little of it.

It's late afternoon and the sun is still bright and harsh, a counterpoint to the dropping temperature. The street is mostly quiet, but two streets over she can hear car horns blaring. They link arms and amble down the street, occasionally pausing for Clint to pet every single dog and cat, since they all come to him anyway.

“Do you think this was a bad idea?” she asks after a few blocks. 

“You probably should've brought a hat. You always complain about your ears getting too cold.”

“About Natalia.”

“Oh. I thought she'd play nice at least.”

“She wasn't rude.”

“You spent all morning cooking. She ate three bites of eggs and two of fruit salad. That's kind of rude.”

“She didn't know.”

“I think it was obvious. When we did change positions on this?”

“I don't even know why I'm trying to be nice.”

“Well I don't know either.”

“I'm not going to do it again.”

“Okay.”

“I'm not even going to visit her again. She's just tolerating me anyway.”

“Okay.”

“Or should I force her to endure my presence?”

Clint stops short and pulls her to him. “ _Bobbi_. You're hyperventilating.”

She takes a moment to take stock of her breathing and finds out he's right.

“It's not a big deal. Natalia probably won't care if you do see her or not, and if she does she won't admit it because that'll be a weakness.”

“Okay, new subject. Do you want to decorate for Halloween this year?” Last year they'd gone all out, if only because they were the only house on their street not have anything up the year before. That's what they get for moving into a side street at the edge of the city, away from most of the traffic and noise. It had more of the twisted ideals of suburbia that she grew up in and less of New York's bland indifference to anything out of the ordinary. She imagined very few people who lived deep in the city decorated for Halloween. 

Last year, Clint had spent eight hours carving two dozen pumpkins for nothing more than his own desire to do something normal enough, but there were teenage boys in the neighborhood, and the first one he put out was destroyed. He left a small bomb, not strong enough to do much more than scare the boys, in the second one he put out. It was destroyed but it didn't happen again. To anyone's on the street. Clint and Bobbi were known to be a little unstable with jobs of a questionable nature. No one knew just how questionable, but everyone knew it was a friendly gesture that wasn't likely to be so nice next time. They'd learned how to keep their privacy with a series of seemingly friendly, silly comments and gestures that unsettled people just enough.

“No,” he says. “Fury wasn't happy to learn there'd been a small bomb on our front porch. It's like he doesn't trust that I know how to build one right.”

“I would think he'd be more worried because he knows you can build one right.”

The bomb had been the first in a long list of tiny things between Clint and the neighborhood boys. He was haunted by a childhood that never was, and they weren't smart enough to listen to their parents and stay away from the couple in the middle of the block who knew too much about that time mom and dad experimented with drugs in college and got caught trying to break into the local dairy plant to free the cows. It ended with the boys retaliating by sneaking onto their property and trying to plant pot in their house while they'd been out at an agent's annual we're-attempting-to-be-normal-people Halloween party. What they didn't know was that their security system had been designed for a spy's paranoia, and they quickly found themselves trapped in a room, stuck with darts that made your muscles freeze up, and left there for hours until they came back. Several parents had been hammering on their door, and by the time they'd gotten home, the neighborhood had worked themselves into a frenzy. Clint would be fine with doing it again, but Fury caught wind of the incident and called them in like misbehaving children.

“We can do some nice designs,” she suggests, thinking of the tasteful and not really scary things her mother hired people to hang on their house. 

“I vote for people stuck to targets with arrows.”

“Okay, let's find sexy costumes and role play in bed instead.” She means it sarcastically, but as soon as the words are out of her mouth, she knows how he'll take it, even before she sees his mouth curve into a leering smirk. “You'll put real bodies up, and that's not gonna fly.”

“We can embalm 'em. There's plenty of monsters around New York to kill. The police will be baffled, and there'll be a media sensation. It'll be fun.”

“Until someone realizes we have a missing person _dead on our porch._ ”

“Front yard. Give me more credit than that—burns are fantastic and very Halloweenish.”

“You're not allowed to visit Natalia anymore.”

“Don't be silly, doll. That wouldn't be enough for her.”

–

Clint does not put up dead bodies—real or fake—for Halloween. He insists on hanging up an overabundance of spiderwebs and showing a picture to Natalia, who, three weeks into her deprogramming, isn't feeling very nice about his sense of humor. She hisses at him and spends the rest of the w,eek baring her teeth anytime he comes close to her. He responds by sneaking into her cell and actually _gluing_ a cat ear headband to her head when she's half dead from the first rung of the deprogramming. He makes the wiser decision of avoiding her for a while, spending his time trying to talk Bobbi into an absolutely tiny costume of an unidentifiable fairytale character. 

November comes in easily, getting colder and windier, and New York fades into gray slush and hot drinks. Natalia takes an invite for a warm home cooked meal, and the meal goes better because she actually eats and has stopped glaring at Clint, but it also goes worse because the deprogramming is halfway done. It leaves her as less of a person and more of an empty shell. She's lost weight, and her cheeks are hollow. She moves automatically, and she has no inflection in her speech or expressions on her face. Clint makes borscht because Natalia hasn't had it in months, and she eats all of it on her own without seeming to realize what she's doing. When she falls asleep mid-conversation and doesn't respond to anything, Clint picks her up and takes her to the transport car, and Hill takes her back to SHIELD where she sleeps for almost twenty hours. It'll only get worse from here. 

Bobbi's stuck to her promise of not visiting, but it becomes difficult to keep up with that as she watches Natalia float around like a ghost. Mid-November she visits with a stack of books that are more humor than plot and her attempt at making chocolate truffles. They come out too sweet and misshapen, not that Natalia notices. Bobbi tries her hand at baking various things daily into December until she has work to do on unraveling some very messy research that's led to the deaths of twenty people in Italy. When she's just reading the reports and making notes, she spends the time in Natalia's cell, sharing the boxes of Christmas-themed chocolates that Clint brought her from a chocolatier in California she discovered. He'd just come back from a mission there, and he'd bought far more chocolate than she should eat somehow—he came back with broken bones from taking a tumble off whatever high point he was on to shoot from. She brings a box a day and slogs through a dozen research papers, none of which make much sense and most of which were illegally funded. By New Year's, she has two hundred pages on notes, and none of them include any comments about how these people can't possibly have degrees. Stupid criminals are somehow so much worse than clever ones.

On New Year's she invites Hill and Natalia over. They eat store bought food because Clint can't cook with splintered bones and Bobbi forgets it's New Year's, just like she forgot Thanksgiving and Christmas. Natalia looks in slightly better health, even though she's still tired easily. But she smiles and laughs genuinely if as rarely as ever, as far as Bobbi can tell, and she eats a good amount of food. She still doesn't contribute much to the conversation, but it's an improvement over the entire time she's been prisoner. They play at pretend normalcy until two in the morning.

–

Bobbi wakes up in a pool of sweat. Her immediate reaction is _this can't be right_ because it's below freezing outside and their house is insulated against unexpected visitors and not outside weather. She lays there, staring the crack in the ceiling where she'd once thrown something too hard, and waits to cool down. She's alone in bed, or she knows it would be Clint. He's like a furnace when he sleeps. But he's somewhere in Texas. She waits a moment or two and suddenly something like a dream comes rushing back to her, but she doesn't remember dreaming. All she has are vague premonitions of something bad happening but to who and how and why are all unanswered.

She untangles herself from the sheets and steps onto the floor. Their entire house is tile, but every winter she wishes for carpet. The shiver passes, and she quickly makes a beeline for the bathroom where she'd left her house socks last night. She pulls them on and brushes her sweat-soaked hair from her neck. A crash sounds in the living room just as she finishes brushing her teeth. She slides a knife out from underneath the sink towel and creeps out towards the living room. She hears another crash from the hall and with it a curse, and she lets the tension drain. Just her husband, undoubtedly injured and running into the hall table again. 

“Did something bad happen?” she calls out, still in the hallway. She tucks in the knife into the waistband of her flannel pants. “Did you avoid medical again?”

“They wouldn't let me. _Ow. Fuck!_ ” A bang. The table hitting the wall. She knows the sound well. She sighs, hopes for the best, and walks into the living room.

Clint is attempting to jerk off his torn suit. She comes closer and sees blood soaking the material as well as swollen flesh and stitches. “What happened now?”

“I've fulfilled my yearly quota of getting hurt,” he hisses out.

“Why didn't medical cut you out of it? Stop moving.” She sinks onto the floor 

“It wasn't this swollen before I tried to walk on it.” He leans heavily against the table, his breathing labored. She pulls the knife out and carefully cuts away the fabric of his suit. It tears a scab off, and the bleeding starts fresh. When she's gotten enough off, she sees that his entire calf is swollen, knee to ankle. It's a testament to how much pain he's in that he doesn't even make any comments about her being on her knees.

“It's infected. What did you do between medical and now?”

“Come home.”

“I wasn't expecting you back so soon,” she says as she stands and loops her arm around him. They stumble their way into the bathroom. 

“I wasn't expecting you awake so early. Unless I woke you up. Sorry.”

“No, I had a nightmare. I think. I woke up like I had a nightmare.” She helps him peel off the rest of the suit and puts him the shower. His hair gives up a heavy sprinkling of dirt when the water hits it. “What happened?”

“Things weren't where they were supposed to be. Someone knew we were coming. Wherever I was in Texas doesn't have winter, but they do have guns and mud.” He adjusts himself in the tub so the water won't hit his leg. It's stitched up with a good dozen stitches. “I don't know how it hit but I've never had a wound so painful to walk on.”

“It'll be okay.” She washes around the wound carefully, cleans the wound itself well, and grabs antibiotic, gauze, and her phone. She calls medical while she dabs antibiotic on. 

Claire Richardson answers, listens patiently, goes offline for a minute, and comes back to say, “Lisa stitched him up. A bullet to the calf impacted in the bone. She swears it wasn't infected when he left, but you can bring him back in now if you're worried. Or you can wait a couple days to see if it'll start going down with antibiotics and careful tending.”

She repeats the options to Clint, who chooses to wait it out because he hates medical. She tells this to Claire. “Thanks.”

“No problem. He's gonna be in a lot of pain given how it hit the bone. Over the counter medicine should work well enough, knowing Barton, but we can give him some heavy duty stuff if he needs it. Tell him to stay off his feet as much as possible.”

Bobbi hangs up, wraps his leg in gauze, and heaves him up. For a moment, he's dead weight, then he manages to steady himself and step out of the tub. When he drops into the bed, she goes to the kitchen and rifles around until she comes up with an ice pack for the swelling, pain medicine, a glass of water, and something for him to eat—in this case, the last of the donuts she's been eating all week for breakfast. Clint swallows down the pills, eats half the donut and gives her the other half, and she keeps hold of it with her teeth as she arranges the ice pack on his leg. When she's done that, she polishes off the donut and lies down next to him. She puts a timer on his phone and says, “I'm going back to sleep. Wake me up when you try to move.”

“I think the Red Room knows we have Natalia.”

She lifts her head off his shoulder and studies his face. He's deadly serious, not that she expected him to be joking about this. “Why?”

“I met with Ivan Petrovich. He wanted to hire me to get her out of where she was. Heavily implied it was SHIELD, but he didn't say it outright.”

For purposes never really known to anyone but Fury and himself, Clint has continued to “take” jobs as if he were still freelance. He's captured and killed people for SHIELD like that many times and more than once has brought back valuable information. It also keeps him well off; an assassin like him can ask for a paycheck in the millions. A good portion of it is funneled into charities and even back into SHIELD, but some of it is in offshore accounts or sent to Barney for help that he never takes easily.

“You need to tell Natalia.”

“I don't know how to. He's offering up ten million for her return to the Red Room, as long as she's alive and not permanently injured.”

“Her deprogramming is complete, but that's only the commands we know.”

“He'll reprogram her if necessary. Fury's trying to figure out what to do with that information. If Natalia is feeling up to it, he'll probably send her into the devil's lair and see what happens.”

“Are you okay with that?”

“Doesn't matter how I feel about it.”

“She's an asset, whether Fury likes it or not. He'll have a full SHIELD team watching the scene. And you, to protect your moneymaker.”

“Ten million is a lot. That's almost triple the most I ever got paid freelancing.”

“You want the money?”

“It wouldn't hurt.”

“We'd have Petrovich. He's been elusive until now. If he's willing to pay so much for her, though, he'll have something in the works. Does he know you used to be partners?”

“Yeah. He played on that a bit. Natalia and I were never shy or apologetic about selling each other out for something else we wanted, but this is different. I don't know if he wants to reprogram her and bring her back into the fold, or if he wants to make an example of her.”

“The Red Room doesn't really exist anymore.”

“He might be trying to rebuild it. Petrovich has his hands in a lot of nasty things.”

–

Fury lets Bobbi and Clint tell Natalia about the situation. Bobbi brings the last of the chocolates, and Clint goes off to get some Russian food, as if any of this will soften the blow. Maria Hill eyes Natalia through the glass with something that might have been sympathy; she has been informed of what is happening in case she needs to step in to soothe her charge with a needle full of sedative. Natalia is reading a book with a faded paperback cover, the text pretty much the same color as the background, and Bobbi vaguely remembers picking it up for her. She thinks it's a mystery set in the back alleys of 1930s Chicago. 

“Natalia,” Clint says quietly, and Bobbi watches the redhead's face. She looks up, smiles almost warmly in greeting, catches sight of their faces, registers his tone of voice, and frowns.

“Good… afternoon?” she hazards a guess, and Bobbi goes to sit next to her while Clint sits in the chair in the corner.

“It's more mid-morning,” he says as he offers up the food. Natalia takes it and begins to eat, still occasionally eying them.

“How's the book?” Bobbi asks.

“If I never see the word dame again, it'll be too soon.”

“I'll find you something else.”

“I do like the mysteries, though.”

“Good. I was afraid I'd have to wander into the romance section.”

“I'd have to kill you,” Natalia says seriously.

“Don't you have romance novels shoved somewhere, doll?” Clint asks.

“My mother's,” Bobbi tells him, since he never asked, and he probably never felt the need to since he's never seen them not coated in dust. “Her attempt to make me into the sort of daughter she wanted.”

Natalia snorts.

“Too tame for you, honey?” Clint deadpans, although his eyes seem to be moving into a leer. She throws a chocolate at him and he catches it in his mouth midair.

Natalia polishes off the food and accepts a chocolate from Bobbi. “What do you need to tell me?” she asks three chocolates in, interrupting Clint's increasingly noticeable leer and Bobbi sticking her tongue out at him.

“You're worth ten million to Ivan Petrovich,” Clint says after a brief pause.

“Only that?” she asks lightly.

“And I'm the lucky person to bring you in.”

Natalia's brow creases a little, and Bobbi takes that as surprise. “Clint pretends to still be freelance for information,” she explains. “On his last mission, he met with Petrovich.”

“Where?”

“Texas.”

“Texas?”

“Yeah,” Clint says. “He's been trying to track down everywhere you've been over the last twelve years. But we think he knows you're at SHIELD. He never said the agency's name outright, but he heavily implied it.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Fury wants me to bring you to him,” he says with any inflection or sign that he's watching her face. “You're asset status now which means you'll be protected. You'll have a tracker in you and—”

“In me?”

“Yeah. Attached to a body part. Petrovich wants me to bring you somewhere specifically, and he needs to me to keep you in line, so I'll be with you as long as possible. You'll also have the weight of a full SHIELD op behind you. You're an asset, so you'll be protected. When we can, we'll swoop in and get Petrovich or you can kill him. You'll be handed a weapon right before you go in. He's expecting me to check.”

“This will happen when?”

“It might not happen at all,” Bobbi says. “We just wanted to tell you, in case Fury comes down to talk to you about it.”

“Thank you,” Natalia says. “Can I be alone now?”

–

The op does come, unfortunately. Bobbi and Clint spend a week preparing Natalia to fight for her life again, and she picks it back up easily, despite the fact that she's been in a prison cell for the better part of a year. She takes the directions from Fury with no expression whatsoever, and when the time comes, things are as ready as they're going to be.

Bobbi is on the ground with half a dozen other high ranking SHIELD agents, fanning out over the perimeter and keeping watch on the building. There's another half dozen agents on rooftops playing sniper, none of them anywhere near Clint's level. Fury, Coulson, and Hill are central command in a delivery van parked on the corner of the nearest street, right next to a warehouse it frequently delivers to. Another dozen or so agents are fanned out in the area with guns and binoculars focused on the windows of the warehouse where they're meeting Petrovich. Inside, there is nothing. It's just a meeting place, something with no ties to either of them. 

Clint hands Natasha a small gun, and she hides it with practiced knowledge. She's injected with a sedative and when she goes limp and pliant, he picks her up and carries her into the warehouse.

Ivan Petrovich is waiting for him, and now it's a waiting game for them.


	2. Part Two: Natasha

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since I didn't comment on this on the first chapter I'll say it here: This is a non-AoU, non-AoS compliant mix of comics and MCU. And, as I said, my comics knowledge is spotty. Enjoy!
> 
> Trigger warnings for rape mentions, sexual violence against women, and violence against children.

LATE WINTER/EARLY SPRING 2002

Natalia knows three things with utmost certainty: She will die before she allows Ivan Petrovich to get his hands on her again; she is the only person who can protect herself; and the man at her back has his own reasons and she can't figure them out, only knows that they exist.

Clint has always been kind, too kind, and she's more surprised than she wants to admit that he made it as a spy. She remembers him at nineteen, all skin and bones and broken eyes and false pride, shooting arrows as if the bow was an extension of him. No matter how half starved he had seemed, he shot easily, his strength never failing him. He was softhearted and breakable, prone to looking like a kicked puppy with wide sad eyes anytime she said something even remotely unfriendly. It had been easy to use him, easy to convince him to do things he wouldn't ordinarily do, and it was easy to leave him behind and let him take the bullet or beating that was meant for her.

But at twenty nine, or thirty, whatever he was now, he possesses a real pride and the knowledge he is dangerous, and it unsettles her. She has always had some control over the men in her life, even Ivan to an extent, once she understood what he wanted from her and how she could make him believe she gave it to him. Having control over Clint was both easy and her usual way of dealing with men, and when she woke up tied to a chair in a SHIELD safe house, she lost that control.

She tried, when she first came to SHIELD, to exert some level of control over him. She tried to convince him of a dozen things, never realizing he was married. It would have been a different game then, but it hardly mattered once she realized it. She didn't want any harm to come to her, and messing with the marriage of the scientist who was doing experiments with her blood seemed like a bad idea. She had to figure out a new game, and she lost it immediately to Nick Fury. 

Fury had always been dangerous. She'd been a little afraid of him, a dozen years ago, and it was a simple task, talking his partner into attacking him. He'd killed his partner in the fight and lost his eye, and within a year or so, he was director of the most lethal government agency in existence. She should have known it was only a matter of time before he sent someone for her.

She would have liked to believe that by being an informant she would have gotten one up on him, but she feels like he's only waiting for her to screw up. Her only way of winning would be to stay loyal to SHIELD for the time being and stay away from the espionage that's so deeply ingrained in her afterward, but that feels a little like losing part of herself. She doesn't want to be owned again.

“Showtime, tsarina,” Clint whispers his old nickname for her against her ear, and she bites back the shiver. Clint has always been a question mark to her, another potential name to add to the list: Yelena, and Lucya, and Vera, and James, and Alexei, people she'd loved once or thought she did. She has never been sure where Clint was on the list, only knew he was after James, who she wanted to run away with, after Lucya, her first love, and before Yelena, who had lied so easily to her and made her believe it, before Alexei, who she grew to hate. But she has never thought of him in terms of love before, and clearly he has not thought of her like that either. She thinks of Bobbi and the way jealousy burst through her before she even realized it when the woman waved her wedding ring in her face. Maybe it had been love. Maybe it had been the knowledge she'd lost again.

–

Ivan Petrovich is a twisted monster wrapped in layers of culture and civility. As far as Natalia can tell, he wears a three piece suit and an expensive watch and has a brand new state of the art phone. He chats suavely as he hands Clint the briefcase full of cash, and Clint drops her to the floor just enough to check it. The sedative they gave her didn't knock her out completely—they needed her to come to early enough in the game—but it makes her limp and unable to move on her own. She closes her eyes, keeps her breathing even and steady like she's asleep, and listens to the exchange. Clint keeps one hand on her and the money seems to all be there.

She thinks it will be the end of it, but it's not. Ivan asks if he would carry Natalia up the stairs so she can be properly restrained. She can't see what awaits her—when Clint picked her back up, he faced her the other way so all she has a view of is the dusty mildewy hallway. It's disgusting. Dust puffs up under his boots and she's fairly certain that the holes in the walls have been made by termites. The lighting in dim enough that she can't see much else, so she assumes that there aren't any insects crawling on the floor.

Clint puts her down into something cold and metal just as the sedative starts to wear off. She tries to clutch at his jacket just to see if she can, but her fingers won't move that much. A little longer then. She allows herself to be manhandled into the container and takes stock. Metal container, built to her size. Air chamber. A handful of tubes dangling down, brushing against her hair. She wiggles her feet a bit. Something like stirrups. Half formed memories bubble to the surface, and her heart seizes up. She knows what kind of container this is. Ivan is chattering at Clint, and she manages to turn her head enough to face them. He's preparing a syringe. Clint is just standing there, holding the briefcase with one hand, his other shoved into his jacket pocket. It's cold in here, yes, even with the sweatshirt and two shirts they've given her to wear, but she's sure he has his hand on a gun or knife. 

She cannot and _will not_ say “help me” but she flails against the container. It catches Clint's attention, and he shifts a little to face her. She can't speak, doesn't want to, but he must read something on her face, as his expression shifts from bland indifference to confusion to understanding. What he understands she doesn't know.

Unfortunately, she catches Ivan's attention too, and he silkily says, “Ah, she does remember,” as he fiddles with the syringe.

“If you wanted her dead, I could have done that,” Clint says, causing Ivan to pause.

“Oh, no, I don't want her dead,” he says, and she feels her fingers clench. Grateful to have that little bit of control back, she concentrates on moving her fingers and toes. Ivan is paying more attention to Clint now. “I'd like to bring her home, but she's been so evasive. We've missed her so.”

“Hard to believe anyone would miss her,” Clint says, folding his arms over his chest and propping himself in the doorway. She glares at him; if he sees it—and he probably does—he ignores it.

“She has a home with us, and it's time we remind her of that. She's been on her own too long.” Ivan comes at her with the syringe, and she tries to slam her fist into him but her arm isn't moving that quickly yet. He catches it midair and holds it down. Clint does nothing, not that she expects him to. This is her fight for the moment. She hisses and throws herself into another punch and ends up halfway out of the container. It takes a moment for her to catch her breath from the way her ribcage slams into the edge of the metal. She scrambles onto her knees and knocks the syringe from Ivan's hand; it likely contains the mixture of sedative and muscle relaxant to make sure she can't fight the programming.

Clint makes a halfhearted grab for her when she runs from the room, but it doesn't seem to register with Ivan. Or possibly, it doesn't matter to Ivan; Clint was paid to bring her here alive and unharmed. He isn't responsible for keeping her here, and if Ivan wants the help, he'll have to offer more money. He won't—he hates to part with money, and ten million is less than she's worth but more than he's normally willing to give. 

The patter of Ivan's dress shoes haunts her as she runs down the steps of a creaking staircase. She bursts out into a room with a rusted out hull of a packing plant. There's plenty of places to hide, provided the rust doesn't decide to give out on top of her. She chooses a place behind the biggest part of the metal and waits.

Ivan is not a spy or an assassin, just a monster who turns little girls into monsters. His dress shoes are lighter than boots, but the floor creaks and dust puffs up with every step and he doesn't know how to walk to prevent some of that. She counts the steps and pulls out the gun they've given her. She has six shots; they didn't give her extra bullets. More footsteps sound on the floor above her—Clint's boots, heavy and moving in a decidedly not stealthy manner.

“Natalia,” Ivan calls out, and she remembers thinking fondly on his silky smooth voice once, remembers feeling it wrap around her and soothe her. She knows better now—there is nothing remotely soothing about a monster's games. “I only want to take you home,” he says in Russian. “Nothing more, my little pigeon.”

She gags and presses her hand to her mouth. Her comm crackles and someone says, “Kill him if you need to, Widow,” and she thinks it's Fury but she can't concentrate. Her vision blurs into a room filled with a dozen ten year old girls in small cots covered in blue blankets, sleeping peacefully, not knowing that tomorrow night there would be one less of them. She gags again, swallows down the bile, and feels her fingers loosen on the gun. She tightens them, trying to keep it within her grasp. 

Another room. Yelena's mouth on hers and her fingers dancing on her spine. Another—the broken body of a twelve year old girl who failed to move faster than her fellow trainee. Ivan's body pressed against her. A man with his eyes gouged out and her holding the knife that did it. A room filled with medical equipment and doctors with needles. James' room, where they frozen him again, right in front of her. A bullet in Lucya's stomach and her blood on Natalia's hands and clothes and _everywhere_. 

She throws up and retches there for a while. The sound of vomiting is not easy to hide, even if she had the presence of mind to do so, and it takes only a moment for Ivan to find her. 

“Shh, shh, little one. All will be well. Come out from over there, dear.”

She raises the gun and tries to shoot him but the shot goes wide and clips him in the shoulder. He stumbles back and the civil veneer drops long enough for her to see the hatred and malevolence in his eyes. She tries to shoot again, but her hands are shaking too much. She drops the gun and they both scramble for it. He gets there first.

She doesn't want to die by anyone's hand, least of all his, but she's on her knees in a moldering warehouse, unable to keep control of her breathing. Her vision blurs again, and this time there are no bitter memories, just her own fear choking her. Her view tinges black around the edges. It wasn't supposed to end like this.

“It wasn't supposed to end like this,” Ivan says with something like regret. She gives a choked laugh. “I came here to take you home. Ah, Hawkeye. You've joined us.”

“Wasn't sure if I should leave or not,” Clint says casually.

“I was not about to ask for the money back if she escaped, if that's what you mean. I thought you were checking her for weapons.”

“I did.” He moves close, his heavy boots clear on the steps. “That's one of mine. Must have grabbed it when she ran.”

“Ah, yes. Our Natalia is conniving like that.”

She wants to ask him if it's not time to stop this charade and arrest Ivan, but Clint doesn't appear to be paying much attention to her. He steps around her, takes the offered gun from Ivan, and says lightly, “If you don't need me...”

“May I request your help in getting her back to the cell?” Ivan says. 

Clint shrugs. “Sure.”

She has never been tender with the way she touched Clint, and he has always responded in kind, if not with her cruelty. His touch when he picks her up is no different than the thousands of other times he'd touched her, but it feels more bruising with the memories of a savage prison cell she called home behind it. She doesn't cry but she throws up again, Clint barely managing to swing her in time to avoid it getting on him. He shifts her back into position and lets Ivan take the lead back up the stairs. With his back turned, Clint rubs his hand in little circles over her shoulders and mouths, _just a little longer._

“The syringe will calm her, if it wasn't destroyed,” Ivan calls back to them.

“It's filthy,” Clint says, “but the needle was intact when I last saw it.”

She lifts her head weakly to glare at him. His fingers squeeze gently at her back.

The needle is coated in dust and grime. Ivan pulls a handkerchief from his pocket and polishes it while Clint dumps her back into the container. He seems to have understood the general gist of the container if the tenseness around his eyes were any indication. He picks up the briefcase again, slings it over his shoulder, and keeps her pressed into the container with one hand. She clutches at his wrist with one hand and feels a knife running along his forearm. She plays with the tip of it with her fingers, wondering what he'll do if she tries to take it. She can kill with her hands easily but she prefers having the protection of a weapon. Clint eyes her, seeming to understand what she's thinking, and he twists his arm in a way the presents the knife more freely to her.

Relief courses through her, and while Ivan pulls out a vial from his pocket and checks the dosage, she slides the knife out from its holster. She remembers this knife; Clint had bought somewhere in the Czech Republic from a man who handcrafted them. It has a dragon carved into the handle, overlaid with purple and blue crystal, and she'd mocked him for getting it since it was more pretty than practical. He'd just shrugged and told her he always wanted something with a dragon on it. She'd stopped mocking him—she understood well what it was like to finally get something you never thought you would. 

They'd always understood each other well, without anything having to be said.

A shadow makes its way across the half boarded up window. Bobbi, she realizes after a minute. She's fought Mockingbird, seen her work firsthand, but there's something fascinating about the way she easily swings herself between two planks of wood and lands silently on the floor. She raises her hand and shoots something off quietly, and Natalia has to assume it's a tranq gun by the lack of real sound and the way Ivan slaps his hand over his neck.

She scrambles out of the container on her own the second he hits the floor. Bobbi drags him up and heads for the staircase, and Clint puts his hand on Natalia's back and steadies her as they follow.

He doesn't ask for the knife back.

–

She sleeps for sixteen hours according to Maria Hill, but she doesn't remember going to bed. She remembers Clint and Bobbi being nice enough to take her home with them, and she spends a good hour under the hot spray of their shower, trying to wash away the things in her own head. She then ate pancakes and had a cup of chamomile tea, since that was all they had, and she remembers turning their television on low so she didn't disturb Hill who was sleeping in their living room with her as she clutched the dragon knife to her.

But when she wakes up on Bobbi and Clint's couch, it's almost dusk and Hill is there to take her back to her prison cell along with another agent Natalia doesn't recognize. “If it wasn't for your panic attack last night, Fury would never have let you out,” the other agent says.

“It wasn't a—a panic attack.”

The woman smiles gently. She's clearly one of the older agents, her brown hair fading nicely to gray, smile lines deepening around her mouth. “Yes, it was. No one blames you.”

_That would a first here_ , she wants to say, but it seems unnecessarily cruel in the wake of someone other than her partner and his wife being kind to her. “I'm hungry,” she says instead. “Can we stop for food?”

“You can eat here before you go,” Hill says. “Barton's making chicken.”

It takes her a moment to remember Barton is Clint; she spent a decade not knowing his last name. “Oh okay.” She rubs at her eyes and yawns, forcing herself to sit up. The television is off, which is just as well, because she's fairly certain she was watching infomercials for silly things. She stretches, and the older agent sits down in the recliner with the practiced ease of someone who has been here before.

Hill must notice her wondering because she says, “This is Rebecca Majors,” she says. “She was in Fury's Academy class. She trained Morse.”

Natalia thanks her for the information and goes to use the bathroom. She tosses cold water on her face and tries to avoid looking at herself in the mirror. She has no memories of nightmares but she doesn't feel well rested at all, so there will undoubtedly be dark circles that look like bruises under her eyes. She deposits a good sized amount of toothpaste on her finger, scrapes it onto her tongue, and fills her mouth with water, swishing it around. It makes her mouth feel fresher at the very least and it means she can linger here instead of facing others. She putters around the bathroom for as long as she can, taking in all the details of Clint's domestic life. It isn't as fascinating as she'd hoped it would be. The house isn't very big but it seems luxurious. The his-and-her double vanities are set in a counter that looks to be real marble, off white and veined with black. She knows from her time in a stately house pretending to be a politician's loving supportive fiancee that marble is easy to crack and stain, and she can see the water stains, bloodstains, and little fissures when she looks closer.

The rest of the bathroom is made of wood painted in soft greens or left brown. Natalia wonders why they've chosen green for their house for a moment then moves on. The sliding glass door of the shower is frosted and painted with climbing green vines. The floor is tiled in an off white like the rest of the house and it has a green mat on it. Natalia turns slowly and tries to find something interesting. Their medicine cabinet is filled with the usual sorts of things—over the counter pain relievers, an anti-nausea medication, some allergy medications, cortisone cream that looks untouched, gauze and bandages and antibiotics. The only interesting thing she finds are sleeping pills in an alias of Clint's she remembers from a long time ago, filled at the local pharmacy, not given to him by SHIELD. The bottle is almost empty.

“Natalia?” Hill calls through the door. “Dinner's ready.”

“I'm coming.” She washes her hands and catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror. She quickly looks away.

–

Bobbi comes to visit three days later. She hasn't been around since they captured Ivan. As far as Natalia can tell, Bobbi is in charge of the interrogation. She wants to ask if they've gotten anything out of him, but she doesn't want to know if he's said anything about her. “I want a salad,” she says instead when Bobbi asks if there's anything she wants that's in her power to give. “A real one.”

“Why?”

“I like salad,” she says confusedly, unnerved by the way Bobbi is watching her, head tilted sideways, blonde hair falling out of its ponytail. “… or a nice steak would do?”

“I can bring you a salad, if you want,” Bobbi says. “I just wanted to know if you actually liked salad or if being in Petrovich's presence again did something to you. Clint says you've been off kilter.”

She hazards a guess at what she means. “The Red Room kept us attractive with experimental drugs not diet and exercise.”

“Okay,” Bobbi says easily. “Anything specific? Want steak on top?”

“I'll take a salad by itself. Whatever you feel like putting in it. Eggs maybe.”

Bobbi brings a salad and some new books by the next day and tells her she's leaving on a mission first thing in the morning, so she can't stay. Natalia thanks her for the salad and goes about destructing the salad while reading the books' summaries. It's a good salad—mixed greens, fennel, shredded carrots, red cabbage, cucumbers, tomatoes, bell peppers, celery, blue cheese, and boiled eggs, all topped with balsamic vinaigrette. She makes a mental note of all the things she sees and tastes in it and settles in to eat with a book about a missing woman.

Hill comes in seconds after she finishes the book and takes her into yet another meeting with the World Security Council. Afterward, they go for an eight mile run on the half mile track inside SHIELD's gym. They practice knife throwing until dinnertime. Clint brings by steak for all three of them instead of whatever is passing as food in the cafeteria. Instead of eating in her cell, they eat in a little side room, where all they can see through the window is sleet and wind. She eats slowly, savoring the view of outside more than food, until the food starts to get too cold to properly enjoy. Which is right about the time Jonathan McKay comes in to escort her to Fury's office.

Jonathan McKay has auburn hair fading regally to light blonde, a politician’s smile, salon tanned skin, and he wears nothing but three piece suits in various shades of blue. Natalia imagines his thirty plus years at SHIELD have been with the communications or R&D departments prior to his appointment as deputy director. He has sharp teeth, she notices, but he also has a way of making people comfortable. When they get to Fury's office, he gestures for her to sit and makes no show of the fact that there's a guard there to watch her. It takes several minutes for him to reappear with an unamused Fury.

“I've been told I need to offer you a choice,” Nick says as McKay takes a standing position behind her. “Either you spend the rest of your life in a prison cell or you work for us for a year and we set you up with a job.”

“What a difficult choice.”

“Let's get something straight, Widow. I want to put a bullet in your head. But Barton put an end to that, so we'll have to figure out what's gonna happen from here. You have two weeks left before I have to transfer you to a main prison.”

“Or give me a job.”

“If you sell us out, we'll gladly kill you.”

McKay chooses to jump into the conversation right as Natalia starts to wonder how much damage she can do with the letter opener. It's wood, and it doesn't look very sharp, but she's made do with less dangerous objects. “Miss Romanova, the situation isn't quite that black and white. I'm afraid given what you've done in the past, we can't allow you to be unwatched.” She turns to him and he takes that as an indication to continue. “Because you had to be deprogrammed, you'll be required to work for SHIELD for one year so we can determine if you need additional procedures to function normally around civilians. However, given your predisposition for violence, we will need to know where you live and work until such a time it no longer matters.”

“Until I die, you mean,” she says. “Am I allowed to think about this?”

“Of course. As Director Fury said, you have two weeks. If you have any questions, I would be happy to answer them.”

“I have lots of questions.”

“Perhaps you should step into my office. Director Fury's job is done.”

She shrugs, gets up to follow him, and calls a semi-sarcastic goodbye to Fury. McKay's office is more decorated than Fury's—he has pictures of himself in vacation spots around the globe on the walls, and there are posters of famous paintings between them. His visitor chair is more comfortable too. She settles into it, waits for him to settle into his, and asks, “How closely would I be watched working for you?”

“All new SHIELD agents are required to work with a senior agent for their first year. You will work with Agent Barton. Lieutenant Hill will be your handler. If for any reason they think you've betrayed us, they can detain or kill you without awaiting approval. You'll have to live in the apartments we keep on base, and you will still have to wear the tracker. At the end of the year, if all goes well, we will remove the tracker and set you up with a job. Typically, it ends up being security, but if you have any other marketable skills, feel free to inform us. In the beginning, the job and apartment we set up for you will be close to a SHIELD base, not necessarily this one. If you move, we'll need to know. If you stay in contact with Agent Barton or Dr. Morse, they can enter it in for you.”

“These are two very conflicting options, relative freedom and lifelong imprisonment.”

“I agree,” he says easily. “The choice comes from the World Security Council, so I can't say why they decided this. I imagine it's because you have the potential to be a valuable asset to us, but that would require Director Fury allowing you to stay after the year is over. I think we can both agree that it's unlikely he would be willing to do so.”

She chews at the corner of her lip for a moment. “Am I allowed to request things?”

“Like what?”

She's felt unsure maybe three times in her life, and she hates every second of it. She chews on her bottom lip and hesitates. “I don't want to sleep with anyone,” she says bluntly after a moment's pause, wondering how it will be taken.

But he just nods. “There is a clause you can add to your contract that states we cannot ask you to have sexual relations in pursuit of your target. If you cannot complete a mission without doing so, you can request to abandon the mission without rebuke. If you choose to complete the mission regardless, you cannot blame us. And of course, there is a chance you may be raped.”

“What will happen then?”

“An increase in mandatory therapy and psychiatric leave until a therapist releases you.” There's a little pause. “Essentially, you will be a full SHIELD agent, with the exception of the mandatory tracker and apartment. Someone will go over the full rules with you if you choose to sign the contract.”

“Okay, I'll think about it,” she says.

–

Bobbi comes back with two broken fingers and a whole lot of anger. She brings with her a pot of stew and crusty bread still hot from the bakery. Hill joins them, and they move to the outdoors, where the temperature is starting to warm, barely. Natalia is wrapped in a castoff of Clint's that he was nice enough to bring her, Hill is wearing SHIELD-issued thermals and two sweatshirts, and Bobbi is wearing a cheery bright blue fleece jacket. 

That's what SHIELD has done to her. It's made her think of colors as 'cheery.'

She tells them of the job offer, and they both think she should take it. She's not sure she agrees. Relative freedom is what she wanted, but she has no desire to work for Fury. She has even less of a desire to feel even more fondly of these people than she already does. It's easy to imagine her spending time with them, ten years down the line, still sharing food and strangely effortless conversations. Too effortless, and last time that happened… she thinks of James' smile and his real hand reaching for her, and the way she felt when he held her close. She thinks of standing in his room and watching them inject him, her arm being held by Ivan. She thinks of what was left of her heart breaking into a million pieces.

She can't let these people into her heart because eventually they will leave, on their own free will or not. She can't take it again, can't feel the pain like razors under her skin. She thinks, _I'll just go to jail. There are worse things_. 

“Natalia,” Bobbi says concernedly, leaning closer to her. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Yes, I'm fine.”

–

Bobbi is an attractive woman, all long legs and dangerous eyes. She lays supine on the floor of her living room, determinedly looking anywhere but the kitchen. Natalia lays down on the couch and watches her. It's warmer out now, and Bobbi has given up on flannels and moved into shorts and t-shirts as house clothes. The shorts that might actually be men's boxers are patterned with ducks and show off her legs nicely. Natalia thinks of the last time she touched a woman, two or three years ago, when she'd slit a throat of a drug lord's daughter. She'd been all legs too. 

“Why are you watching me like that?” Bobbi asks.

“The last leggy blonde I met I killed.”

Bobbi turns to stare at her.

“Not that I was planning to kill you. I'm not after your drug lord father.”

She snorts. “My father's not that interesting.”

“Would you have liked it better if he was?”

“Maybe I would have been happier growing up and not become a spy.”

“Why aren't you looking at the kitchen?”

“Last time I was in there, all our pots were out and our kitchen table was bursting with ingredients. I'm afraid of what Clint's cooking.”

“Will it be messy?”

“The dish? Probably not. The dish will probably be great.”

“Will it?”

“Clint's a good cook. Just don't ask him to bake. He never got the hang of that. It's much more precise.”

Natalia tries to plug the Clint she knows into a kitchen setting. It doesn't work. “How?”

“He spent a lot of time cooking when he first came to SHIELD. He didn't have any schooling or knowledge of international laws, so they put him through a fast paced course before they sent him out. We were living in my old apartment. Studio. The shower was tinier than the ones on base and the bed barely fit, but the kitchen had decent space. And he wanted to do something nice for me. I appreciated home cooked meals since most of what I ate were sandwiches and Thai food from around the corner.” Bobbi looks over at her, and Natalia takes a moment to appreciate the arch of her throat. “You've eaten Clint's food before.”

“Have I? I guess. I never thought about it.”

There's a bang from the kitchen and they both turn to the doorway. Clint cusses from deep inside but nothing else happens, so neither of them bother to get up to check on him. “I think he's making a three course meal,” Bobbi says. “Since he has the time. He's not on call this week. They've been keeping him busy asking a million questions about you.”

“I'm going to jail,” she says. “Who cares?”

“What? Why?”

“I don't want to work for Fury. I'll go to jail. I won't have to worry about anything there.”

“But we'll miss you.”

“I thought you wouldn't like me.”

Bobbi shrugs. “Not at first. Mostly I was jealous.”

She would have used that once. “There wasn't anything to be jealous of.”

“So Clint tells me.”

“You don't believe him.”

“You're an attractive woman. He's a hotblooded man.”

“It's basic biology?”

“Ha, ha.”

“I wouldn't have minded screwing him,” Natalia admits. “He has nice hands.”

“Yes, and they're very talented too.”

“Are you trying to convince me to try him out?”

“He's not a pair of jeans.”

“But does he fit well?”

Bobbi grabs a pillow from the recliner and throws it at her.

–

She takes the job, in the end. She spends hours trying to choose a new name but in the end, she lets SHIELD anglicize her name and be done with it. _Natasha_ is a strange thing to be called. It brings to mind the hazy, possibly made up images of her family. They might have called her that, if Natalia is her real name. But now it's just her name, no closeness implied.

Clint transfers five million dollars to her brand new bank account from the money he got from Ivan, and she goes a shopping spree—Egyptian cotton sheets for the mediocre bed in the SHIELD apartment, a bookcase for all the books Bobbi got her plus the ones she found at a bookshop tucked behind a pizza place, brightly painted dinnerware, silverware with a shell pattern on them, a state of the art blender, a set of pots and pans she'll undoubtedly never use, a variety of kitchen utensils on the off chance she ever gets around to cooking, and the best knife set she can find, which makes Fury eye her judgmentally from a distance. Then she remembers she needs clothes that aren't issued by the agency, so she buys a bunch of plain t-shirts, some jeans, a handful of sweaters and jackets, heavy heeled boots, and for fun, a bright red ballgown and a pair of glittery heels. 

She goes through an endless round of fittings for a stealth suit, ending up with one in dark blue, the blue SHIELD logo barely visible. It keeps her breasts from moving around too much and it is laced with Kevlar and some sort of mesh that keeps her cool. She trains with Clint in it for weeks. His suit is edged with purple but is essentially the same thing.

In May, she's declared back in shape and as stable as she's going to be, and Agent Coulson, a man who Clint clearly does not think highly of, briefs them on an information gathering op in Portugal. Natasha spends the days before they leave trying to fit into her persona of a staid and professional assistant to Clint's company executive. SHIELD has what amounts to a wardrobe department, and she gets fitted for a variety of boring business suits that hide weapons well. Her Widow's Bites are new and improved and easily hidden in a chunky bracelet.

For the flight, she wears a gray tweed suit. She spends half the flight familiarizing herself with a briefcase full of “sales reports.” A rival company of the company they're pretending to be from has been tagged for potential gunrunning. The other half she spends napping or pretending to. She wonders how SHIELD had managed to hide Clint's hearing aids, since he clearly still needs them. His hearing had never been all that good, but the bomb blast in Choloma destroyed it. She remembers talking to him afterward and being angry that he was ignoring her. She'd grabbed him and turned him over and watched his eyes go wide and panicked. His ears wouldn't ever heal from that, so the agency must have found a way to make hearing aids smaller and mostly invisible. She can't see any sign of them from where she sits, but she thinks if she gets closer she might see the line.

They land in Portugal in the afternoon and go to the hotel to clean up and take a quick nap before the business mixer tonight. She doesn't bother with a nap, although the open door of his adjoining room shows he clearly has taken advantage of the three hours of downtime they have. He's fast asleep in boxers and a worn out shirt. She creeps through the doorway, glancing behind her at Hill, who is also fast asleep, not used to the hours of a field agent yet. A small part of Natasha's brain tells her this would be a good time to escape. She ignores it and sits on the edge of Clint's bed.

He startles awake and has a knife at her throat before she can properly settle. “I'm not tired,” she tells him, and he stops eying her distrustfully long enough to slide the knife back under his pillow. 

“I am,” he grumbles. “Can't you amuse yourself for an hour?”

“I thought about running away.”

“Try masturbating instead.”

“If you insist,” she says, throwing herself down on the bed next to him. He rolls his eyes and turns over, keeping grip on his knife. “I still have your dragon knife, by the way.” She's amazed Fury let her keep it, and she's even more amazed to realize she's never thought to use it.

“I'd like it back now that you have your own,” he says, and then he promptly falls back asleep.

She thinks about stabbing him in the back with the knife. The idea gives her a sense of satisfaction, but when she actually imagines it, her stomach churns. Whether she wanted to be or not, she's now attached to him. He's been a good companion for the last decade or so. And he helped her live, even though he knew she didn't deserve it. “Am I allowed to leave?” she asks, smacking his shoulder unnecessarily to wake him up. “Can I go explore Amadora?”

“In character, yeah,” he answers sleepily. “Be back in time.”

–

The part of Amadora they're in is not that interesting. She subtly scopes out the convention room the mixer is at, but there's nothing new to add to SHIELD's reports. She eats some street food, buys a ring bigger than her finger, gulps down two cups of strong coffee, and takes two to-go cups for Hill and Clint, since they both guzzle down coffee like oxygen. The caffeine content probably doesn't even do anything for them since they're so used it, but they'll appreciate the gesture. 

Or they'll think she's poisoning them. But Clint takes the cup anyway and gulps it down as he stumbles around, trying to tame his hair and find his fake glasses. Hill takes hers after that, gives her a tight smile and a brisk thanks, and goes to put on her own suit to play bodyguard. Natasha wrestles on her sleek black gown. It's not skintight or revealing, but it skims over her body flatteringly. It has long sleeves and a slim ankle length skirt, and in order not to trip over the hem, she wears a pair of obnoxiously tall heels. She wears her new ring since it's in character enough and matches the rest of the jewelry she was given.

Clint takes advantage of his difficult to guess age—he's always looked older than he was, the victim of a difficult life—and his common enough features to blend in. With a classic suit, a pair of wire rimmed glasses, and a suitably stern expression, he looks every inch the conservative executive. He offers her his arm. A limo takes them to the convention center. Their IDs are checked, Clint hands over the tickets, the doorman takes note of how many weapons Hill has, and they're in.

–

It's one of the easiest and most boring missions Natasha has ever worked. By midnight, they have most of the information they need. She spent half an hour studying Clint's profile to find the line of his hearing aids while he chatted about very boring things with executives. She then had a very stressful and tearful conversation in the bathroom with a young blonde about how falling in love with your boss is never worth it. Part of her wants to go punch the man in the face—he's a good twenty years older than his secretary—and another part of her wants to smack the girl. But she fakes sympathy well and extracts herself from the conversation in about fifteen minutes, after determining the girl has nothing useful to tell her. 

They leave at one, once people have moved from tipsy to drunk to puking in flowerpots. They fly back to New York first thing in the morning; the taking down of the gunrunning ring is not within her clearance level. They're debriefed, they return the clothes, and Clint takes them all out to lunch at a diner that serves coffee strong enough to wake up an elephant.

“That felt like a waste of time,” Natasha says as she cuts her sausage into bite size pieces and mixes it into her hash browns. 

“We got the information.”

“I haven't worked such a boring mission in… I don't think I've worked a mission like that.”

Clint pauses in shoving an onion ring into his burger long enough to roll his eyes at her. “It'll get better,” he tells her. “Fury knows this is a waste of our talents. He just wants to see what you'll do.”

“Tell him if he's going to send me on mind numbing missions, he might as well just shoot me.”

“He'll probably take you up on that.”

“Pass the ketchup, please,” Hill interrupts. Clint slides it down to her. “Thanks.”

“You like it?” he asks her. “I always thought their meatloaf was too dry.”

“It's fine.”

“High praise there.”

Hill shrugs. “I've had worse. I've had my own meatloaf.”

Natasha laughs. Clint says, “I make a pretty good meatloaf. Want to come over, Maria? I can teach you.”

“Am I invited?” Natasha asks.

“I'll take the meatloaf but not the cooking lesson,” Hill tells him.

–

Bobbi is deep undercover with some sort of drug ring or crime family, so the house is quiet when she shows up with Hill. She was never formally invited, but she figured since Clint didn't tell her to stay away, she might as well come. Her other options were sticking with SHIELD cafeteria, who no longer delivered now that she wasn't a prisoner, attempting to cook for herself, or trying to find a place to eat near the base that wasn't Russian food. Besides, Hill had knocked on her door before she left and asked her if she wanted to come along.

Clint opens the door with a splattering of ketchup and oil down his shirt. “Take the meatloaf out if the timer rings,” he tells them as he peels it off. “The oven mitts are on the frog. I burned myself with hot oil. I didn't get any sleep.”

Natasha had napped and it's clear Hill had too, so they find the frog—an olive green clip shaped like a smiling frog on a lily pad—and take out the meatloaf when the timer rings as he's bandaging himself or changing. The oil was from the fried okra he made, as far as she can tell.

“Is it all done?” Hill calls out. When he answers yes, she turns to Natasha. “Let's set the table.”

Clint and Bobbi have their cabinets organized in a haphazard way, and it takes them a minute to find the plates and serving bowls they both know they have. Since neither of them know what to do with the meatloaf, they leave it alone and instead plate up the fried okra, mashed potatoes, and charred corn. 

“Thanks,” Clint says. He brings the meatloaf over. “We don't have a plate big enough for it,” he says as he dumps the sheet pan on the table. “I hope you like it. Help yourselves.”

“I had a meeting with Fury,” Hill says after several minutes of silence as they passed around dishes. “Since Romanoff wandered off on her own earlier and didn't try to escape, he's willing to up your missions a little more. I didn't tell him about your threat,” she adds as an aside to Natasha. “I didn't think it would help.”

“It'll still be boring, won't it?”

Hill shrugs. She is a military woman, not a spy. Her compass for this is untried. “He'll send you out again in two days. I won't be on the ground with you this time. It won't be anything interesting, I'm sure.” She takes a bite of meatloaf. “This is pretty good.”

Natasha has never understood quite what meatloaf was, but it does taste fine. “It tastes like coffee and rum,” she says after her second bite.

“There's no coffee in it,” he tells her, “but I forgot I already added the rum.”

She rolls her eyes. They eat in silence for a while longer; out of all of them, Clint is the only one who can talk for ages, and he is half asleep, nodding off over his food. “I've never understood the need to fry everything,” Natasha muses as she pokes at the fried okra. She had it before on a mission somewhere in the south (the man she was hunting down was a big fan of barbeque) and it's tasty enough, but she likes her vegetables plain. 

“Frying makes everything taste better,” he says, his word slightly slurred. “Whaddya think, Hill?”

“I like everything I don't have to cook myself.”

Clint snorts and forces himself into a more upright sitting position. “Coffee,” he declares. “Maria?”

“Please.”

“Natasha?”

“No.” She watches him stumble up and rifle through a cupboard filled with frequently used items, wondering if she should offer to help so he doesn't burn himself. He finally finds the coffee, which appears to have been shoved all the way in the back, and sets it to brew. When he comes back to the table to wait out the brewing time, she allows herself to shift back to her food. He notices, of course. Even half dead with jet lag, his eyes never fail him. “Someone will blame me if you burn yourself,” she tells him, and like a thousand times before, neither of them need to say out loud that they both know she's lying.

–

Natasha has never hated the French Riviera as much as she does today, and it has nothing to do with the fact that their mission is likely a test for her. Hill is back at the SHIELD safe house, drinking coffee and offering them the occasional stray bit of information, and Clint is somewhere high above her with his bow. An assassination is in the cards, but she can't seem to find the man they're supposed to be killing, and she can't handle the sticky humidity coming off the nearby coastline.

She does another pass of the ballroom. It's a real ballroom too, the kind with gold filigree and gilding and a giant chandelier that could probably buy a house even in New York City. They have caviar and cases of champagne and an auction for “charity” that seems to be comprised solely of diamonds. No one here is on the good side of fifty, including her, she supposes, but she still looks about nineteen. 

She's the only woman wearing green, a rich emerald silk confection that looks designer and is right up her alley for when she wants pretty clothes. She's actually thinking of stealing it from SHIELD—surely they could just take it out of her paycheck. She still has most of the five million Clint gave her, and she's not too bad at playing the stock market. To pass the time and avoid the lecherous stares, she pulls up the stocks on her phone, still offering the occasional glance upwards towards the door.

After another fifteen or so minutes, she is frustrated. Most of the other women are eying her with contempt, most of the men are looking at her like men have always looked at her, and the food isn't even that tasty. “You killed him already, and you're just having a good laugh,” she says in Russian into her comm. “Right?”

“I wish,” Clint responds in English. “I haven't seen him either.”

“He's the fashionably late type,” Hill offers. “Give it another hour.”

“It's already been an hour,” he says. “How long is this damn party gonna go for?”

“Intel says they usually go for about six to eight hours.”

He sighs. “You better not drink all the coffee.”

Thirty minutes later, Natasha has exhausted the buffet table, fixed her makeup twice, and danced with a charming ninety year old man who told her she reminded him of his recently deceased wife. But their target is still conspicuously absent. A little too conspicuously. “Has he been attacked?”

“I'm not picking anything up,” Hill says. “But his security cameras show his car is still in his garage.”

“We should check.”

“That's above your clearance level.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. I'll go,” Clint says. “I'm sure Widow knows how to slit a man's throat on her own.” There's silence then the crackle. “Um, I'm pretty sure that's him coming through the door now.”

“I don't have him leaving from any of the security cameras,” Hill says in frustration.

“Probably at one of his clubs or something. Widow can confirm it's him.”

It is. She flirts with him a little after he's introduced as the person of honor at the party and wanders off to drink more champagne, dance with a man who can't seem to take his eyes of her chest, even though the dress isn't low cut, and watch him out of the corner of her eye. Eventually, he makes his way to her again, offering her more champagne, a smile he seems to think is sensuous, and a “tour” of the house they're in. She accepts after a moment of demurring. It seems he's genuine about the tour, and she gets a half hour's worth of interesting facts about baroque architecture, which she appreciates, and his hand edging closer and closer to her ass, which she doesn't.

They finally make their way through to a bedroom, and Natasha hopes the sudden way her heart seizes up doesn't show on her face. She lets him kiss her slowly at first, making sure to keep hold on his hands so they don't wander. “I can't make the shot,” Clint tells her. “The fire escape is in the way.” She means to say something to make their target move, but before she can, he has her wrestled onto the bed. Her body seizes up instead of fighting, and she thinks the whimper she hears is her. She tries to shove him off her with shaking hands, but he grabs her wrists and tells her not to play coy.

She wants to ask for help, but if Clint can see her, he can help. “Ask him to take you to the roof, Widow,” he says calmly. “Tell him you'll sleep with him after. You don't have to,” he adds quickly, and she wonders what's on her face; she feels like she has no control of it right now. “Just promise him. Can you do that? Are you okay with that? There's a statue of an angel on the roof.”

She forces a smile and shoves the man off her with considerably less strength than she actually possesses. “There's a statue on the roof. Will you show it to me? I've always wanted to make love among the stars.”

The man is easily swayed by that. He leads her up three flights of stairs, his hand gripping hers tightly, and she admires the angel, which looks more like a gargoyle, keeping her eyes on it until she hears the thwack of an arrow hitting its target. She's done this with Clint before. She spins around and finds the arrow deeply embedded in the man's throat, blood spurting in all directions. 

The thud of boots behind her has her reaching for her gun, but it's just Clint, throwing her a bag with her stealth suit in it. “We have about five minutes before someone looks for him,” he tells her. “So hurry.”

Peeling off her clothes in front of Clint has never been difficult before, but it is today. She hesitates, and he obligingly turns around without her having to ask. She tosses him her ballroom clothes, and he shoves them inside the bag in a way that makes her wince. By the time the five minutes come, they're two rooftops over, working their way down a vine wrapped trellis.

They both ignore the way her hands tremble and her feet don't seem to be able to stay on the slats. He doesn't grab her, even when she tumbles down a good five feet before catching herself, although she notices that he's prepared to if need be. They move across a dozen yards, edge along half a dozen parties that have spilled outdoors, and find their way to a less extravagant part of town. It takes almost an hour, and she is irritated to find her breath and legs and insides are still shaky from the encounter. 

The SHIELD safe house is the topmost apartment of a sturdy building with few frills. Maria is waiting for them with microwaved food and fresh coffee. She does a basic debrief with them then sends them off to shower. There's only one bedroom and one bath, so Natasha claims first use and leaves Clint attempting to peel his suit off his sweaty body. Ordinarily, she'd stay and watch, but tonight she turns abruptly on her heel and marches off into the shower. 

She meditates while the creaky water heater does its job, but that doesn't help at all. Now that they're back, she feels drained. Her pulse is still not back to normal, and if she lets her mind wander to where it wants to go, she'll throw up. Instead she stumbles into the shower and cries under the spray.

–

Clint knows she's been crying. He gives her shit about using all the hot water, but his eyes say everything. He makes her a cup of tea, and she mocks the use of teabags just to give herself something to do. Hill has already gone to bed, having extended the amount of hours and jet lag she could deal with. They sit in the kitchen of the apartment, a tiny thing minimally furnished, while Clint dunks the last of this morning's breakfast pastries in a cup of coffee and enters the initial report into the computer. Her own reports aren't taken seriously. It seems as if they care less about the details of the mission and more about making sure she didn't do anything stupid.

“Do you think they have anything good on TV?” she asks.

“I can honestly say I've never paid any attention to French television.”

“Late night programs, I assume. They're always stupid.”

He shrugs. 

She swirls her teabag around. “Maybe soap opera reruns? They're fun to mock.”

“You don't have to be frightened of going to bed.”

Her heart stumbles, and she curses him in Russian, ignoring the fact that at some point he learned to speak it. This is a change in the game they have played for years. He's not supposed to say these things out loud and he knows it. “I'm not afraid.”

“Then why aren't you in bed?”

“I'm not tired.”

“Yeah, you are.”

“How would you know?”

“Soap operas. You always talk about soap operas when you're tired and don't want to sleep. I figured that out in Odense.”

She bares her teeth at him, but they both know she isn't really angry. “Why should I sleep anyway? I can sleep on the flight in the morning.”

“Have it your way, Romanoff. But there's only two beds, so if you're not going to sleep, I'm not doing the gentlemanly thing again and giving up the bed. The couch was hell on my back last night, and lemme tell you, it's not that fun to shoot a bow with a sore back.”

“Am I supposed to apologize?”

“Why change the habit of a lifetime? Just don't expect to find the bed empty.” He finishes the last piece of pastry. “I'm going to bed.”

“So am I,” she says, just to be stubborn.

“I'm still taking the bed.”

When she's done brushing her teeth, he's on the couch. She smiles to herself and goes to bed.

Clint's always been too nice.

–

“Do you miss Bobbi?” she asks. Bobbi's been gone for almost six weeks now, deep undercover somewhere. Natasha's clearance level isn't nearly high enough for her to check, and Clint won't tell her, even though it's clear he knows where she is. 

“Of course,” he says like it's a dumb question, and maybe it is. Once, she missed Alexei when he went away. Of course she would—he was her husband. Is still her husband, she supposes, although her new employers do not consider her marriage to be valid. She wonders if Clint knows about Alexei or if that was something that stayed between her, Hill, the therapist, McKay, and Fury. Hill hadn't told anyone, that much she could tell. Hill didn't gossip—she worked and slept and occasionally played soccer as a form of stress relief but did little else. “Do you miss her?” Clint asks after a beat.

“I don't miss people,” she scoffs.

He snorts.

They've worked two dozen or so missions in the last six weeks, none of them lasting more than a couple days at a time. They've traveled up and down the entirety of Italy twice, hunting down members of a mafia family, they've touched down on nearly every South American country to stop gunrunning, and they've braved the truly atrocious summer of Alabama to find an informant. She'd like to think she's learned something about him, but all she knows now is the ways he's grown.

Clint has always been able to chatter for hours without actually saying anything. It's always been distracting in the field, his tendency to go off just to fill the silence. Not only has he learned not to do that during missions—although he still filled their flight to Milan with a talk about mashed potatoes—but he's learned how to hone it as a weapon. It's a little disconcerting to have Clint talk the ear off the man holding a gun to his head, but it works. Clint talked endlessly in nervous, deliberately mangled Spanish about the beauty of an old building in Montevideo, and the man decided a person that damn boring and easily scared couldn't possibly be the assassin they were looking for, even if he did happen to have a bow. 

Clint used to be uneducated and unable to educate himself, even if he wished it. When he went places, he didn't understand the language or the culture or the history. He offended people without meaning to. It doesn't happen anymore. Languages drip easily off his tongue, and SHIELD makes sure their agents know enough to navigate the mission easily. It amazes her, how different a little knowledge can make someone. He's more confident now, sometimes bordering on cocky, and no matter how irritating it can be, he's never really wrong. He knows how to deceive, how to evade, how to lie. He's always known how to kill.

But the worst and most disturbing change is the way he is no longer so scared of challenging her. During missions, when they have different ideas about how to go about something, is one thing. But when he's asking her questions she doesn't want to answer, it becomes terrifying. She doesn't want to think about these things. She doesn't want to think about the fact that she does miss Bobbi. She shouldn't miss Bobbi. There's no reason to.

“How do you handle her being gone so long?” she asks instead.

“I work,” he says, eyes focused on the television. He has it on PBS, watching some sort of documentary on space stations. “And I go to bars and play poker and try to find some new recipes she might like whens she comes home.”

“What if she doesn't come home?”

“She'll come home.”

“How are you so sure?”

“I'm not,” he says, finally turning to her. “But I can't think like that. Haven't you ever been in love?”

Her heart seizes. She thinks about how this whole stupid thing with him and Bobbi and her truly started, with her slapping him across the face because of Gregor Avdonin. Because of a stray comment that wasn't even aimed directly at her. She forces herself to calm down. Bobbi told her she'd know if Clint had something to say. He doesn't know about any of the people on the list with him. “A long time ago,” she tells him. “It wasn't never worth it in the end.”

There's a beat where he watches her with some sort of emotion she can't identify, and then he says, “I'm sorry it didn't work out for you.”

They sit in silence until the end of the documentary. “Do you know Russians sent the first person to space?” she asks, because the silence is suffocating.

“Yeah.”

“I wanted to be an astronaut when I first heard about it,” she tells him, and it's even the truth. “But I didn't exist.”

“You'd be bored up in space.”

She hums in agreement. He's right. It would have been terribly boring to her. She's not the exploration type. “It was a new place to go.”

“Yeah, I get that,” he says quietly. He hands her the remote. “Find something. I'm gonna order a pizza.”

They eat their pizza in front of a documentary about a former president. Neither of them are paying any attention. She doesn't care enough, and she lived through his presidency anyway, and Clint is distracted by a recipe book. It's old and faded, the letters on the front of reminding her of the books Bobbi brought for her. It's probably from the same bookstore. She tries to see the title, but all she can make out is the word 'Americana.' 

“What are you going to make for her?”

“I was thinking of 'Charleston red rice,'” he tells her. There's a pause. “Would you like to help me make it tomorrow?”

– 

You can burn rice, apparently. And it is easy to overcook bacon, make onions stick to a pan, and splatter crushed tomatoes all over the ceiling. Clint sets her chopping vegetables instead. Using a knife only come naturally to her in an attack. She cuts three of her fingers within three minutes, and she eventually gives up completely. It takes fifteen minutes for her to get bored watching him cook, so she decides to explore the house. Domesticity intrigues her, if only because she has no compass for it.

Their kitchen is decorated in the same green-wood-white pattern as the rest of the house. It's not a huge kitchen, but it's warm and cozy, especially with the smell of rice cooking. A hanging wine rack is half full with a variety of cheap wines, a handful of open shelves are holding pots and utensils that seem to be frequently used, and spices, and a bunch of jars filled with various small things—clothespins, cupcake wrappers, measuring spoons, skewers, toothpicks, and the like. In fact, she thinks, when she goes to the door to explore elsewhere, it looks a little messy when someone walked in. 

She abandons the kitchen for the living room. She's been in the living room a million times, and it's always the same—table scattered with books and scientific magazines, television stand holding a TV and some board games, recliner, couch, and loveseat, and a bunch of things on the walls that seem to be from various parts of the world. Upon closer inspection of the prints of the wall, she notices one Clint bought in an Ethiopian street market with her once. It's nice, she thinks, and makes note of the idea. She may not be much of a decorator, but she is well traveled. It wouldn't even be false to keep these things on the wall, like the people who buy them online. She actually has been everywhere once.

She pokes around their training room and finds a variety of guns, knives, a crossbow, and mimics of Bobbi's batons. Nothing out of the ordinary there. She finds a pantry stacked full of a dozen boxes and another pantry filled with bedsheets, towels, and blankets. Their hallways are bare except for a table that has nothing but a framed photo of their wedding day. They'd eloped, clearly. Bobbi is wearing a soft floaty blue dress embroidered with darker blue roses, and Clint is wearing dark jeans and a nice button up. Bobbi's blonde hair is tossed up in a messy bun, as it always is, except she'd fancied it up with a sparkly blue tiara-like band and a white rose. They're both smiling hugely, except Clint's smile is nervously happy, while Bobbi's radiates contentedness.

Natasha picks up the photo to see if she can find anything else interesting. They must have gotten married in spring or summer from the greenery in the background, but there aren't any identifying characteristics to tell her where they were. She takes the photo back to the kitchen because she's nosy. She waits until Clint has dumped the sausage into the rice to ask. “You look scared,” she says to announce her presence.

He turns around, catches sight of the photo, and eyes her. “Are you doing through drawers?”

“It was on the hall table.”

“Can you put it back on the hall table?”

“Where'd you get married?”

“City hall.”

“Why are you unhappy?”

“I wasn't. Do I look unhappy?”

“Currently, yes.”

“Put the photo back and stop snooping.”'

“I haven't gone through your bedroom yet.”

“I'm not a mission, Natasha. Put the damn photo back and sit down or leave.”

She rolls her eyes, puts the photo back, and goes to snoop in their bedroom. Their bed is soft and fluffy and made up with dark red sheets. Their drawers are mostly Bobbi's things, underwear and bras and camisoles and pantyhose and stockings, with one drawer of Clint's underwear and socks. It's not that interesting. Natasha already knows what kind of underwear Clint wears, and Bobbi's are surprisingly plain. 

She pokes into the closet, which again is comprised mostly of Bobbi's things. Natasha has never noticed anything interesting about her wardrobe before, and looking in her closet doesn't change that at all. Blazers and dress pants and a couple of pencil skirts in navy and black, blouses in creams and whites, mostly low heeled shoes in tans along with a couple of spiky sparkly heels. A couple of pairs of jeans, some plain t-shirts, and some nicer ones. About ten dresses ranging from professional to fancy to cocktail to sexy. The only two interesting things are a red dress that looks comprised of silk, lace, and nothing else and a pair of leather thigh high boots.

Clint's part of the closet isn't any more interesting, mostly t-shirts and jeans with handful of professional clothes. A couple of leather jackets and hoodies. A full suit in a dress bag with a dry cleaner tag from two years ago. His shoes are even more boring than Bobbi's—boots and running shoes mostly with one pair of dusty dress shoes with tassels. 

She closes the door and heads back for the kitchen. “You two are boring,” she declares.

He spins around and fixes her with a strange look. “You went through my house, didn't you?”

“Yes,” she says. “Why wouldn't I?”

“Because I told you not to.”

“Why would that stop me?”

“Basic respect?”

His tone is starting to get—not angry, Clint isn't an angry person. But unhappy definitely and maybe even bothered. She pauses. “Did I do something wrong?”

“Yes,” he says in a “well duh” sort of voice. 

Natasha bristles without thinking because, well, who really cares if she went through their drawers? It's not like she found a stash of sex toys or anything. “Why?” she asks a little more hostilely than she means to.

“I am not a mission, Natalia,” and her name sounds like an insult on his tongue. “I told you not to go through our things. You wouldn't like if I went through yours.”

“I'm not you.”

“ _Natalia_.”

“Stop calling me that.”

He rubs his temples. “Let's try this again. Here's how things work in the non-spy world.”

“We're not in the non-spy world.”

“ _Natasha_.” He definitely sounds annoyed now. A little part of her curls up and wants to cry. She shoves it aside. Who cares if he's upset with her? It's not like she'll have to fight him. It's not like she'll see him again when the year is up. “I have a life outside of killing people. And in this life, you don't do invasive things like poke into people's drawers without their explicit permission.”

“Big words for you.”

There's a pause where he hides his face behind his hands and she's fairly certain he's angry now. “Just… leave. Please.”

_You promised me lunch,_ she wants to say. But she turns around and leaves.

–

“Help me figure this out,” Natasha says, bursting into Hill's office the next morning. As a handler, Hill has her own office, which is small and shoebox-size, with a glass door and walls dividing it from a hundred similar offices. She sits in the small uncomfortable visitor chair.

Hill looks up from the computer, still continuing to type. “What's wrong, Romanoff?”

“Clint's mad at me.”

“Well, fix it. You'll be stuck in a hotel room playing newlyweds this time tomorrow.”

“I haven't been debriefed.”

“You will be in an hour. We're staying the States, so there's no need to rush it.”

“I poked through his house a little. It's not like I found anything I didn't know about. The same clothes they always wear, the sort of stuff they read.”

“Did Barton let you poke through his things?”

Natasha recounts the conversation. “Okay,” Hill says. “I have no desire to lead you to why you went wrong so let me just tell you. You violated his privacy even after he explicitly told you to not do it, and then you refused to listen to why he was upset. He has every right to be angry with you and you're wrong. Apologize, promise not to do it again. And stick to that.”

“I always do that.”

“On _missions_. Barton is your partner, maybe even your friend. If you treat him like a mission, you'll lose his respect and possibly even his support. And you do need his support.”

“I'm not a prisoner anymore.”

“It doesn't matter. Unless you gain Fury's trust, you'll always need Barton's. If not, they can renege on this and make you a prisoner again. Or kill you.”

“No one told me that.”

“You're the most dangerous person in the world, Romanoff. No one is taking any chances with you.”

Natasha spends several minutes thinking about it. “How can you talk and type at the same time?” she finally asks.

“Did you listen to a word I said?”

“Yes.”

“I have a lot of experience. Grab Barton, make up, and get to conference room five. This is going to be an undertaking of a brief for me.”

–

Natasha absolutely hates hotel showers, and she hates them even more when she's trying to dye her hair. “Why is the water pressure in hotels so weak?” she grumbles.

“It probably saves money,” Clint says from the bathroom counter where he's sitting and watching her. “You look weird. You have brown streaks all over your face.”

“It's not washing off.”

“There's a hose out back.”

“Fuck you, Barton.”

Clint hasn't quite forgiven her yet, mostly because she managed to make a mockery of apologizing. She knew she was doing it as she spoke but she couldn't seem to stop. She hated that she cared. She didn't want to care. So she was going to ignore him and let him burn out his irritation with her. 

“Why didn't you dye your hair before we left?”

“I'm supposed to be undertaking a new life. New clothes, new hair, new husband. Didn't you listen to the brief?”

“Not really,” he says distractedly. “It got a little boring there in the middle.”

“Do you have any idea what we're supposed to do?”

“Steal information, kill someone, take down some sort of crime ring. The usual bullshit.”

The problem with letting Clint remain irritated at her is that she's getting irritated with him too. She takes a deep breath and plunges her head under the spray again. The dye stains the bottom of the tub but washes off her shoulders. “How do I look?”

“Pale.”

“I'm going to slap you in a second.”

“I can shoot you and I'll be praised for it.”

Deep breath. “Is all the dye off my face?”

“Yeah.”

She drags herself up off the floor, towels herself dry, and shoves Clint out of the way to peek in the mirror. He's right. She look paler than usual with her dark brown hair, and her eyebrows don't match. She shrugs and gives up. They're supposed to be a trailer trash kind of couple from a small town in the Midwest. It'll probably work.

They get dressed up in their clothes. Clint's are a little more well-worn than the ones he usually wears but other than that, he looks no different. Natasha, on the other hand, is wearing the world's tiniest denim miniskirt. “You don't have the legs for it,” Clint tells her as they leave.

“Is that why you never slept with me?”

“No.”

“Why didn't you?”

“I've seen what you do to the men you sleep with.”

She's unexpectedly hurt by that. “Oh,” she says breezily, “I thought it was because you're a leg man.”

“That too.”

“I'm sorry,” she says abruptly. 

“I think that's genetics.”

“Not for not being leggy! I'm sorry for being—for violating your privacy or whatever.”

“Didn't we already do this?”

“I'm being genuine this time. I'm sorry, okay? I don't get it but I didn't want to upset you. I'll try harder.” It's the least she can do. She owes him for helping her. In the past, she would have just saved his life, but that's one of the hallmarks of partnership, so she can't do that. She doesn't know what other way to pay her debt than to listen to him, no matter how confused she is as to why he's upset.

A pause, then, “Okay.”

“That's it?”

“What do you want me to say?”

–

The mission isn't difficult, just time consuming and bogged down with a myriad of details. It takes two weeks of chatting up the right people, playing trashy enough to get attention, and spending far too much of their nights looking through paperwork or binoculars. Natasha mainlines cheap coffee during the time because otherwise she'd fall asleep during lunch, and Clint pops caffeine pills like they're oxygen. By the end of the two weeks, they have all the needed information and are given the go ahead to neutralize the team. Natasha takes down half of them with a poison at lunch, and Clint gets the other half with his bow, and then they're back on a flight to New York.

They debrief with Agent Coulson, and Clint is too tired to be properly hostile, but Natasha thinks she understands why he hates him. Coulson seems to have little respect for Clint's viewpoints; he constantly second guesses everything he says. He'd done it before, but she'd always thought he was trying to figure out if Clint was lying for her. But she'd watched him debrief some junior agents prior to this, and he gave them a lot more respect than he was giving Clint. Hell, Coulson gave her a lot more respect that he gave Clint.

Clint is highly irritated if exhausted the entire debrief, and the only thing that makes him happy is when Coulson blandly informs him that Bobbi returned this morning, seemingly uninjured and mission completed beyond anyone's wildest dreams, but that she took their car he'd left in SHIELD's garage.

“What happened between you two?” she asks. She invited herself along to see Bobbi, and Clint makes no move to stop her from following him out to the subway station. “Coulson, I mean.”

Clint shrugs. “He's never liked me.”

“That's not an answer.”

“Why do you care?”

“I don't care. I'm just nosy.”

“You care,” he says definitively. “I don't know why it's so difficult for you to say that.”

She doesn't know either. “What happened?”

He sighs. “He's one of those people that—I could barely read and write when I came to SHIELD. Bobbi taught me some while she was pretending to hunt me down but I didn't like to waste our time together. She taught me sign language and that was easier. I could communicate like that. Coulson thought I was a waste of a job. He was put in charge of me at the beginning—handler, tutor, all around helper. But he didn't want me at SHIELD. He's one of those—He grew up rich, you know, went to all the best schools. And I was the poor kid who only ever completed kindergarten. I was a waste of space to him. He's one of those people.”

“I thought Fury liked you.”

“I don't think Fury _likes_ anyone. He made Coulson work with me, but Coulson never cared enough to make sure I was doing well. I got blamed for something stupid—I don't even remember what—and when I was called to Fury's office to explain I just sort of… lost it. Coulson thought that proved his point about me.” 

They board the subway. Natasha has always hated being in small enclosed spaces underground. “Fury didn't agree, clearly,” she prompts to distract herself.

“I guess not.” Clint's face is haggard with lack of sleep. Natasha thinks they've probably gotten eight hours total in the last week. The briefing had implied the mission would be easy but fraught with a million little things but it had been difficult for all of them. Two agents on the ground was about five less than what the mission needed. Hill had done as much paperwork for them as she could, but the looking through binoculars for hours on end was their job. “You wanted to know why I looked nervous on my wedding day? I thought she only married me because she wanted me to take the job. I never—she was the first person to tell me she loved me, and I couldn't believe her. I wanted to, but I couldn't.”

“You believe it now.”

“It took a couple years. I made sure never to cause problems for her, or at least I tried. And I did the same thing at SHIELD. I was on probation for years, and I was afraid if I said anything I'd get sent back to prison. Bobbi tried to tell me I was being ridiculous, but the fear never went away. I think Fury was more shocked at me lashing out than he believed me.”

“So what happened?”

“Things changed,” is all he says.

–

Bobbi is enthusiastically eating the rice Clint left in the freezer for her when they get to the house. Clint and Bobbi immediately light up around each other, as they usually do, and Natasha excuses herself to rifle through their freezer. She comes up with seafood gumbo, which Bobbi will hate smelling, ice cream, which isn't food, and something she thinks is pork. She gives up and sits at the kitchen table, waiting for them to stop being sickeningly in love.

Bobbi is clearly still wearing her mission clothes because none of the clothes Natasha saw in her closet would be that tight, that short, or that glittery. Natasha takes a moment to appreciate her legs. Clint, surprisingly, makes no move for Bobbi's legs and seems content to just hold Bobbi close, her head tucked into her shoulder.

“Help yourself to the food, Natasha,” Bobbi says after several long moments. “I can feel you glaring at my back.”

“You two are sickening.”

Bobbi spins around to face her. “Do you need a hug?” she says, face impassive but eyes sparkling with amusement.

“ _No._ ” Natasha is fully prepared to back away if need be. 

But Bobbi merely laughs. “I'm going to shower,” she says, fingers curled in the hem of Clint's t-shirt. “There's menus in the leftmost drawer if you want to order in, Natasha.”

And the two of them go off. Natasha finds the drawer and rifles through the menus, finally deciding on calzones from the Italian place around the corner. She orders some for all three of them and kicks around in front of the television for a while. There's nothing interesting on. Baseball games, a tennis match, soap operas, reruns of crime shows she's seen before. She gets herself a glass of water and settles on a baseball game because she can watch it without paying attention.

She gets up to go to the bathroom and peeks into their bedroom to check if they're out of the shower. They are; they're standing in the middle of their bedroom in their underwear. Natasha can't see much. Bobbi is standing with her back to her, blonde hair damp and tumbling down her shoulders. There's a brush in Clint's hand, but he's only done half of her hair. His face is tense. Natasha takes one step into the doorway and two back. Everything about this screams private and instinct tells her something is wrong. 

Her movements catch Clint's attention. He looks up and Bobbi turns around, and Natasha can see what's made Clint's face so tense. There are hand-shaped print bruises on the tops of Bobbi's arms, on her breasts and ribs and hips and peeking out from her underwear. Natasha feels her heart slam against her chest. Her vision blurs, and throwing up suddenly seems like a good idea. She focuses on a spot on the floor and takes deep deliberate breaths. “I needed to use the bathroom,” she says quietly.

“Are you okay?” Bobbi asks quietly.

“Why are men such monsters?”

“They're allowed to be.” Natasha can see Bobbi's feet moving towards. Her toenails are painted red. Clearly mission clothes, because Bobbi owns no nail polish or makeup as far as Natasha can tell. “You're okay. I'm okay. It's hardly the worst sex I've ever had. And he's dead now.”

“Okay.” The doorbell rings. She forces herself to look up. “That must be the food.”

“Clint can get it.” Bobbi turns and signs something at Clint. He tugs on a shirt and grabs his hearing aids. She turns back and grabs hold of Natasha's hands. “You're okay.”

“Apparently I'm not.” She clutches tightly at Bobbi's hands. They're warm and steady. And they're a reminder—she doesn't have to do this anymore. SHIELD allows their agents to say no to this. She never had a choice before. And—well, the Red Room programmed them with commands that wouldn't let them say no, even if they had the wherewithal to know they should. “You should get dressed,” she says after a beat. “I'm okay. You're right.”

“Okay. I'll be out of your way in a second.” Bobbi rifles through her dresser and comes up with a silky red nightgown. “It's nice on bruises,” Bobbi says when she notices her watching. “What did you order?”

“Calzones for all of us.”

“I'll open a bottle of wine,” Bobbi says, and she leaves the bedroom. Natasha goes into the bathroom, throws cold water on her face, and lets herself cry for exactly five minutes.


	3. Part Three: Clint

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warnings for talk of suicide

SUMMER 2002

It's not the first time Bobbi's come home with bruises from sex with targets. It's not even the worst. But Clint's livid anyway. It's not even the jealousy that comes hand in hand with his insecurity. It's just… He thinks of his father and the casual cruelty he'd always shown his mother, even when he wasn't actively hitting her. It's always been amazing and horrifying to see people be so deliberately violent, as if the other person wasn't a person at all. There are lines he's careful not to cross as an assassin. That's one of them.

He's always hated Natasha for her cruelty even as he recognized it it as a survival instinct. But it's hard to feel hatred for her at the sight of her pale face going ashy white when she sees Bobbi's bruises. He doesn't have his hearing aids in but he can see the shape of her mouth and make out the words 'men' and 'monsters.' It's almost as heartbreaking as his wife's flitting fingers telling him she was just fine even as she winced while shimmying out of the dress. But his attempts at talking about anything personal have always been rebuffed by Natasha so he leaves it alone, goes to get the food, and spends the rest of the afternoon adamantly ignoring the voice inside his head telling him he should really push her just a _little_. 

When she leaves for the night, he watches her go and continues to stare at the door long after she's gone.

“Missing your lover?” Bobbi says teasingly. She bites at his earlobe. She's spent most of the afternoon reading scientific journals and discussing a plot line on the crime procedural they watched with Natasha, but her fingers have been increasingly frisky on his thigh.

Clint bites at her throat gently. “Last year you wouldn't have been joking.”

“I know better now. What's wrong?”

“She needs more therapy.”

“Funny, I remember saying that to you once. You know what you did?”

He'd tried to commit suicide via a bottle of sleeping pills and whiskey. But she was absent and he'd thrown up a majority of it before finally deciding to call medical and tell them a half truth about the mixer. They hadn't known what really happened, and so no one had told her. And he should have told her, but she was already upset with him when one of her friends in medical let it slip to her. So he didn't tell her. And he just… never had.

“She's had to flirt,” he says. “And she freaks out every time.”

“You should talk to her.”

“She doesn't _talk _. She deflects or jokes or makes a nasty comment.”__

__“No wonder you two get along so well,” she mutters._ _

___I wasn't that bad_ , he thinks, but she's not wrong. He's very good at denying things. A little too good, according to various members of the psychiatry team. He doesn't know what to tell them. No one listened to him when he was younger. It's easy to push down how miserable or bitter you are when you've done it all your life. “Are you really okay?” he asks. “Those bruises look nasty.”_ _

__“I've had worse,” Bobbi shrugs. “And we're not talking about me.”_ _

__“Can we talk about you? It's been two months.”_ _

__“And you want to talk about me screwing other men? I feel like I fucked half of Europe.”_ _

__“Have you ever considered the no-sex clause?”_ _

__“No,” she muses quietly. “It's my job. And it doesn't happen every mission. And most of the time it does I get away with kissing and maybe groping. Have you ever considered it?”_ _

__“Most of the world's villains are straight men.” There had been missions of course, but once a year for him, mostly with women. And he hardly cared about it._ _

__“What brought this on?”_ _

__He tugs at the edge of her nightgown. It's a well-worn one that she's had forever, the threads fraying and the material as soft and familiar as her skin. He tugs the edge off her shoulder and lets it reveal one breast, the bruising starkly purple against her skin. She covers his hand with hers. “I'm fine,” she says softly. “We've had worse.”_ _

__He isn't sure how he feels about it, let alone how to put it into words. So he lets it go and instead nips at her collarbone and lets his mouth travel a well-loved path to her breast. She laughs and entangles her fingers in his hair. “You recovered quickly,” she tells him._ _

__“If you're sure you're okay...” he says as he traces his fingers up her thigh._ _

__“I am. But take me to bed first, honey.”_ _

__–_ _

__He kissed Bobbi for the first time on their ninth meeting. He doesn't remember wanting to kiss her, but then he was looking at her lips, so maybe it was a subconscious desire. The only thing he knowingly craved then was his own survival._ _

__He doesn't remember much of that night, how they ended up staring at each other in a dimly lit hall. He remembers the meetings before that clearly, but that night was a blur. There was a fight and gunshots going off rapidly, and her in a torn and bloody dress. He'd run out of arrows, that much he remembers, and out of knives soon after, ending up wrestling a gun out a hired goon's hands. She'd been as lethal with her batons then, only two months into being a trained spy, as she is now. Somehow they made it out and ran for miles and then they were standing in a dimly lit hall somewhere and she asked him if he was going to kiss her or not. So he did._ _

__Bobbi is pretty in hard way, all sharp angles and harsh expressions made worse by her anger. At the time she was three months out of a relationship with a man who had been less than complimentary about her being smarter and tougher than him, and her general distrust of men had been obvious. Which made it all the stranger when her face softened and she reached for Clint again when he stopped kissing her. With that tender expression she looked more her twenty three years and so open for him that… well._ _

__Clint is still shocked at how clearly he remembers waking up next to her in the morning and thinking how beautiful she looked in the early morning light and how terrifying it was to be next to her. In the morning, she'd been just as open and soft, smiling sleepily at him and dragging him in for a kiss._ _

__They didn't have sex again for a while, but every time they met her face would soften. She told him she loved him one day, and he told her the truth, that he wasn't sure he'd know what love was. But it was easily love, this desire to be next to her, to share his life with her._ _

__When he was finally captured by SHIELD after evading them for three years, he thought it was the end of their relationship. He certainly didn't expect her to come to the prison cell and kiss him, tell him they could fix this, or declare her love. It was easier to believe that she had never loved him and that she was using it as a means to capture him. He was used to being used, and he was used to not being wanted, and Bobbi had just declared in full view of multiple security cameras that she had all but committed treason by helping a fugitive of the law remain at large. She could have ended up in prison with him, but Fury pointed out to the World Security Council that he'd never been a threat to SHIELD and he would better serve them as an agent._ _

__He wasn't going to take the job at first. Killing people isn't exactly something he ever dreamed of doing, but Bobbi said she'd marry him, and that was something he wanted more than anything. And the idea of languishing in a prison cell for the rest of his life wasn't appealing. He could build a life with Bobbi, and in five years, he could be free of killing people._ _

__He didn't stop. He never understood why until he sees Natasha's face at Bobbi's bruises. Then he knows: people are monsters, and monsters need to be defeated._ _

__–_ _

__Maria Hill has a smile she only gives to three people, and Clint is one of them. It's a brief smile, like all of hers, but it's welcoming and friendly. He gets it for bringing her into SHIELD after she was his liaison with the military during a mission. And he gets it for being her coffee buddy. He brings her a large cup of extra strong coffee from the shop outside the subway stop and asks her if she has time to talk._ _

__“You and Romanoff are the only things I get to work on,” she tells him, which he takes to mean yes._ _

__“I'm worried about Natasha. I don't think she's handling being involved with men on missions well.”_ _

__Maria puts down her pen, and Clint recounts the previous day's near panic attack. Or maybe it was a full blown panic attack—he doesn't know the signs. “What do you want me to do?” Maria asks. “What _can_ I do? I did notice, but I'm not sitting in her therapy sessions with her anymore. Not that she said much anyway.”_ _

__“By the rules of our contracts, any agents with handlers aren't in charge of their reports on their own mental health. I don't comment on her panic attacks in mission reports, and neither do you. But you can bring it up during her next mental health check.”_ _

__“I can do that. But if she gets pissed off at me, I'm sending her to you.”_ _

__“I can handle her.”_ _

__–_ _

__Two days later, they are sent to somewhere in northwestern Canada to observe and take notes on what is being built by AIM. Before they leave, Maria takes him aside and tells him she asked Fury to send them on a mission that didn't require them to communicate with others, with the full reasons being explained in next week's mental health report._ _

__So Natasha and Clint are sitting the middle of a plain that is still cold, trading a canteen full of green tea and surrounded by enough equipment to make anyone who might stumble across them think they are campers. Clint drinks chamomile the afternoons after he drinks too much but other than that, he's content to avoid tea completely. It was Natasha's turn to pick the drink, though, and she wanted tea, and all they could find in the store was herbal tea, which she promptly declared wasn't real tea, and green tea. It tastes bitter. He takes small sips mostly because they don't have anything else but water to drink._ _

__They're switching off in shifts, but he's not going to be able to sleep over rocks in the flimsy sleeping bag SHIELD provided. He's read the handful of books provided for their cover, including a book on camping that is horribly horribly wrong. Natasha is staring through the binoculars intently, probably never blinking, or else he would try to hold a conversation with her._ _

__“Don't you think AIM will be suspicious of the crazy redhead staring at them?”_ _

__“They're too far to see us which is why we're here.”_ _

__“You're not blinking are you?”_ _

__“I would miss things if I blinked.”_ _

__He has never had any idea what to make of Natasha. This is probably her idea of a joke, but he really doesn't know. He settles down to sleep but it's the middle of the day, and he's only bored, not tired. He studies the scenery for a while. It's not that interesting. He studies Natasha for a while, but that's not interesting either. He tries to reread a Shakespeare play, but he didn't even like it the first time around. “Talk to me,” he says finally. “Or I'll just start shooting at things.”_ _

__“Are you planning to catch dinner?”_ _

__“Do you eat pigeons?” It's the only animal he'd seen so far. The side of her face scrunches, and he knows she's wrinkling her nose. He takes that as a no. “I didn't think so.”_ _

__“I don't know anything about you,” she says. “You could tell me about yourself.”_ _

__“Yeah right. I'm not telling you everything about me.”_ _

__“Why not?”_ _

__“I don't trust you,” he says bluntly. “And I know you. You'll want everything out of me but you won't give anything back.”_ _

__“Okay, we'll trade off,” she says, and he almost misses the tremble in her voice. Maybe it's anger, maybe it's the knowledge she's been sussed, or maybe it's genuine sadness. “Asking each other questions.”_ _

__“Do me a favor and don't lie to me. If you don't want to answer something just say so. I'll ask something else.”_ _

__“Will you lie to me?”_ _

__“I never lied to you.”_ _

__“You did when you were hunting me down.”_ _

__“No I didn't. I needed help taking down a crime syndicate, and I found you through Jorn.”_ _

__“You didn't _need_ help.”_ _

__“Well, I couldn't do it alone. They wouldn't have let me in. I don't look nearly as good in a dress.”_ _

__He thinks the aborted noise she makes is a laugh. “Fine. Let's play.”_ _

__He thinks she means to start, but three minutes pass in total silence. “Who's Alexei?” he asks when it's clear she's not going to start._ _

__“I was wondering if you knew who he was.”_ _

__“I don't. I just heard McKay mention something about what are they doing to do about Alexei in relation to you.”_ _

__“He's my husband,” she says._ _

__He wants to ask her what happened, why she married him, why her voice is so determinedly not trembling. But it's her turn to ask a question, and she probably will remind him of that. He waits._ _

__“I can't think of anything I want to ask you,” she admits after a minute. “Not anything I want to know the truth to.”_ _

__“I'm sure you'll think of something.”_ _

__“Okay.” There's another silence. He times it at thirty two seconds. “Have you ever wished you didn't marry Bobbi?”_ _

__“No. Why did you marry Alexei?”_ _

__This pause clocks in a forty six seconds. “I thought I loved him.” There's nothing to her tone, but he knows that's not the whole story. “Is there anyone who you would kill if you ever saw them again?”_ _

__He thinks of the Swordsman and says, “Yes,” more harshly than he means to._ _

__She glances over at him in surprise. “Were you planning to tell me who?”_ _

__“Were you planning on telling me the truth about Alexei?”_ _

__“It was the truth.”_ _

__“A very small part of the truth.”_ _

__She hesitates. “He promised to take me away from the Red Room. They call him the Red Guardian, and he was supposed to be Russia's answer to Captain America. They wanted me to love him and marry him. And I did. I don't think he loved me though. He said we'd go somewhere tropical, but instead he was trying to push me deeper and deeper into KGB. They let me think he was dead for a while. I was angry to learn he was still alive. I don't remember when I started hating him.”_ _

__He pushes himself up. He wants to ask questions but he won't. “The Swordsman trained me in the circus.” She cuts him a look. “Where else do you think I learned to shoot a bow? And all that pretty knife work you like so much?” Seeing him do that was the first time she'd said something remotely complimentary to him. “He was a monster. He didn't tolerate mistakes. I was only six years old. He wouldn't let me eat or sleep until I did it right, and if I talked back, he'd hit me with his belt.”_ _

__“Are those the scars on your back?”_ _

__“Yeah.”_ _

__“Whose turn is it?”_ _

__“Mine. Why didn't you want to take this job?”_ _

__Eight second pause. “I don't want to answer that.”_ _

__“Why were you upset to learn I didn't want to sleep with you?”_ _

__“Men like you always want to sleep with me.”_ _

__“What kind of man is that?”_ _

__“My question. Why did you learn Russian?”_ _

__“Because of you.”_ _

__“Do you want me to answer your question about what kind of man?”_ _

__“Sure.”_ _

__“You always struck me as the sort of man who screw a girl in the bar and leave before she woke up.”_ _

__He'd never been that person. His sex life had been made up of his short lived career as a prostitute—he'd been desperate for money—and the two women he might have fallen in love with if they hadn't up and left him. And Bobbi. He'd never wanted to be the sort of person who used someone and left. “Your question.”_ _

__“Why did you learn Russian because of me?”_ _

__“I wanted to prove you wrong.” He'd never been able to make the sounds and he remembers her endlessly mocking him. He'd thought if he ever came across her again, he'd like to prove her wrong. But then when they met again six months into his first year at SHIELD, he realized he could learn a lot more from her if he pretended not to know what she was saying. “What's something you've always wanted to do that you never got around to?”_ _

__“Go to the movies without having it be for a mission. Have you ever hidden something from Bobbi?”_ _

__He thinks of staring down at his hands and wondering if it would be a nice thing to die. “Yes,” he says roughly. He clears his throat. “Would you consider staying when the year's up?”_ _

__She snorts. “As if Fury would let me. He'll pack me up as soon as he can. What was it that you hid from Bobbi?”_ _

__“What makes you think it's only one thing?”_ _

__“You're sickeningly in love with her. I thought you'd be the type to tell her everything. Or, alternately, if you don't want to answer, how many things have you hidden from her?”_ _

__“Just the one.” He's not going to give her the ammunition to hurt him with. He still wants to die sometimes. He doesn't need her to find that out. And then there's the off chance that she'll tell Bobbi, and he doesn't want to deal with that. He doesn't want to admit out loud that he lied to her. “Will you still stay in contact with me when you leave?”_ _

__“Probably not,” she says promptly. He's more hurt by that than he wants to admit. He's unwisely fond of her, and his only saving grace is that he knows she can't be trusted. “Have you ever cheated on Bobbi?”_ _

__“Do missions count?”_ _

__“If they count to her.”_ _

__“They don't. No I haven't.”_ _

__“Hmm. I was hoping that would be the secret.”_ _

__“Do you trust yourself?”_ _

__“What?”_ _

__“Do you trust yourself?”_ _

__“I—I don't want to answer that.”_ _

__It's a no, he already knows that. Her answer only confirms it. “Are you still married to Alexei?”_ _

__“It's only the time I've failed at killing someone,” she says flatly. “Why the interest in Alexei?”_ _

__“I've never heard of him before.”_ _

__“He's good—but he's not that good. He's not even at your level.”_ _

__“Well, I was trained by the best.”_ _

__“The Swordsman?”_ _

__“You,” he says confusedly. “The Swordsman's a thief and an asshole, but he's not a spy. He's not subtle enough.”_ _

__“Oh. Well. Thanks, I guess.” She shifts uncomfortably._ _

__“You did train me,” he says. He's not sure why she's being so awkward at that. She trained him. “And, well, Bobbi trained me some, but we didn't usually talk about work.”_ _

__“I never thought about it. I guess I did. Is that supposed to be there?” she asks in a tone that clearly says she knows the answer, a fact further supported by the way she grabs her weapons belt and rises from her sitting position._ _

__He grabs the binoculars from her, spies something that looks like a bomb being carted in, and says, “Showtime, tsarina.”_ _

__–_ _

__Clint does, in fact, run in front of gunfire because he doesn't mind dying, but he'll never tell the SHIELD therapists this. Or Bobbi. And he sure as hell won't tell his brother. Barney has never gotten over the idea that he should protect Clint, even though it's far too late and he's in no position to._ _

__“So you knew the guy was shooting at you?” Barney asks, taking a long drag from a cigarette. “And you ran there why now?”_ _

__“It was going to hit Natasha.”_ _

__“That would have been a shame.”_ _

__Bobbi is away on a mission, so Natasha has been not so helpfully playing nurse with his latest gunshot wound. It appears that she and Barney took an instant dislike to each other the second she opened the door to him. “She's my partner.”_ _

__“She's _the Black Widow._ ”_ _

__“Well, yeah but—Wait. How do you know that?”_ _

__“I know things.”_ _

__“Are you ever going to tell me about your drug selling days?”_ _

__“Hey, we're not talking about me.”_ _

__“How did you even find out I was injured?”_ _

__“Bobbi.”_ _

__“She's on a mission.”_ _

__“She was on a layover in a SHIELD base and they called her. And she called me. 'Your brother got himself shot again. Maybe I should talk to psych about his apparent desire to die.'”_ _

__Clint has never noticed that Bobbi noticed it but now that he thinks about it, it seems stupid to think she wouldn't think that. “I don't want to die,” he lies. “I just didn't want her to get shot.”_ _

__Barney snorts. He's always been the harsher of them, but the world's always been harsher than either of them. He takes another long drag from the cigarette and taps the ashes into a coffee filter. Clint gave up smoking soon after he took it up. The problem with being married to a biologist is that she loves to tell him all the bad things that smoking does to the body. And he wasn't even married to her then. “Okay then,” Barney says. “You didn't want the tiniest nesting doll shot. Why didn't you knock her down?”_ _

__The image of Natasha being the tiniest nesting doll is funny and probably true. “I didn't think about it,” he says honestly. “Is this really a big deal? The bullet went clean through.”_ _

__Barney rolls his eyes, stubs out the cigarette, and says, “Don't be an idiot, Clint. Of course it's a big deal. It happens at least four times a year.”_ _

__“This is the first time this year.”_ _

__“Yeah. You know, I was hopeful. A fool's hope, I guess.”_ _

__“It's not that bad.”_ _

__“Yeah it is. Rest. I'll keep the nesting doll company.”_ _

__“Don't call her that to her face.”_ _

__–_ _

__“So… your nesting doll tells me you've hidden exactly one thing from Bobbi.”_ _

__“Did the nesting doll also give you that bruise?” Clint struggles to sit up. The pain pills have worn off but it's too soon for another dose. His stomach is aching, and because of that, he can't find an appetite. He couldn't even eat the pizza Barney brought to him. He's never turned down pizza in his life. Bobbi uses it as a litmus test for how he feels when he's not being forthcoming. “You should put ice on it.”_ _

__The left side of Barney's face is swollen and turning a black-purple. Still, his brother grins. “It was a good hit. I was afraid she wouldn't be as good as they say she is.”_ _

__“Did you tell her that?”_ _

__“I know what to say to a woman,” Barney tells him. “And it's not that. Do you want to try broth?”_ _

__Clint won't even drink broth when he has a cold and Barney knows it because he's the same way. He glares at him, but he doesn't think it's a scary glare. Barney just laughs and ruffles his hair like he's still six. “Okay, no broth. Toast? You ought to eat something.”_ _

__“Toast and butter, sure,” Clint agrees. Even when he's hungover that goes down alright. “Where's Natasha anyway?”_ _

__“She got into a fight with your neighbor. Seems like the old lady next door to you is very weary of Russians. She called Widow a rotten filthy commie and Natasha called her a mindless sheep of capitalism.”_ _

__It hurts to laugh. “Please tell Natasha I want to see her.”_ _

__She comes in five minutes later, bearing a plate of toast, a glass of water, and a scowl. “I wasn't going to kill the woman,” she says._ _

__“I didn't say you would.”_ _

__“Your brother thought I would.”_ _

__“Barney doesn't know you as well as I do. And can you please not hit my brother?”_ _

__“He started it,” she mutters._ _

__“He knows who you are. He wanted to see what you'd do. He used to work for a crime family. They sold drugs. He didn't want to do it anymore so he sold them out in exchange of a reduced prison sentence. I don't know the details. It was an FBI case. I don't know how they'd know you, but he does.”_ _

__“When was this?”_ _

__“Just before I started killing people. Maybe a year or so before that.”_ _

__“Santorino crime family. Big drug ring. Someone inside them took them down. They had a hit out on them, but they were all arrested in their secret house before that. Does that seem right?”_ _

__He makes note of the name. “I guess. Did you know them?”_ _

__“They had an arrangement with the KGB. Is that why you started killing people?”_ _

__He nibbles on the end of a piece of toast. All he can taste is butter. Barney must have made them. “No. I didn't know. We got separated when I was fourteen. It wasn't until Bobbi told me they'd spoken to my brother in prison that I knew where he even was.”_ _

__There's a pause where she looks like she's going to tell him something but, “Eat your food,” is all she says. She sits on the edge of the bed._ _

__It's getting late, and he was awake most of the night, trying to find a comfortable position to sleep in. He'd made enough noise he'd woken her up too. He'd slept, though, but she clearly hadn't. She's swaying slightly, the way she does when she's exhausted. She was with him all through the flight back to the New York base, keeping pressure on his wound, and she stayed in medical with him until he was released. “Come lay down,” he tells her, scooting over so he was on one side instead of in the middle. She eyes him. “I don't bite,” he says. “Barney's gonna stay overnight anyway. He can sleep on the couch. He doesn't mind.”_ _

__“I don't mind either.”_ _

__“Well, you both can't sleep on the couch.”_ _

__“Won't he sleep with you?”_ _

__“I'm a little too old to share a bed with my brother.” Not to mention, sharing a bed with Barney always reminded them both of their parents' house, where there was never enough of anything but misery. “And he steals the sheets.”_ _

__Natasha thinks about it for a moment, nods once, and stretches herself out as far away from him as possible. The bed is the largest he and Bobbi could find so there's plenty of space. She falls asleep within minutes, and Clint watches her face smooth out into something younger and gentler. He leans over, brushes a stray curl off her cheek as lightly as he can, and says, “It's just me,” when she grips his wrist. “Go to sleep, Natashenka.”_ _

__–_ _

__“What did you not tell me?” Bobbi asks him when she gets back. He watches her wiggle out of her dress with interest. She'd call it a leer._ _

__“What?”_ _

__“Barney told me that Natasha told him that you told her that there was one thing you've never told me. God, I feel like I'm in high school again. Thank god it was just one year.” Bobbi had graduated with a PhD at the ripe old age of twenty one. “How does Natasha even know that?”_ _

__“We were playing a getting to know you game. It was either that or me killing pigeons for kicks.”_ _

__“You've never killed a pigeon in your life, Clint Barton. Are you planning to tell me now?”_ _

__“No. But I am planning to shoot Natasha.”_ _

__She sits on the edge of the bed, takes his hand in the way she does when she wants to have a serious conversation, and says, “I won't be mad at you.”_ _

__If she wants him to pay more attention, she ought to put clothes on. He studies the lace that makes up her bra. Apparently. It doesn't seem to be anything on than sheer froth that sticks her breasts up in someone's face. Not that he's complaining._ _

__“ _Clint._ ”_ _

__“I'm not gonna tell you,” he says. “You'll cry. And I'll feel even worse than I already do for hiding it from you.”_ _

__“Did it involve someone else?”_ _

__“Just me.”_ _

__“You didn't cheat on me?” she says in a small voice._ _

__In the past, he'd have scoffed. He didn't understand when they first married that she was insecure too. Something about her being lethal and brilliant and hard-as-nails pretty attracted men to her, but it also made them hate her in the end. He thinks of Noah Nelson. Nelson had worked for SHIELD as a biochemist for years. He was already older when Clint first started, maybe forty or so, but he'd been obsessed with Bobbi. He wanted her and would stop at nothing to get her, so when he learned she'd been carrying on an affair with someone on their hit list… He'd been unhappy. Not violently so, at least physically. But he'd made sure to make Clint feel as small as possible anytime they interacted. It had taken him three months to realize that Nelson was jealous. He'd wanted Bobbi to conceive a burning passion for him._ _

__He wanted money to do research. Bobbi wanted money to disprove the theory he was trying to prove. Fury gave money to both of them with the stipulation that if there wasn't anything solid to go on in six weeks the funding would end._ _

__Bobbi disproved the theory entirely on week five._ _

__Nelson had raged for hours once they were out of Fury's office. He'd thrown a stapler at Bobbi's head, forgetting she was a highly trained agent as well. She had him on the floor before she really registered what happened. He'd been even bitterer at that. And he'd hated her._ _

__That was the usual pattern of men and Bobbi. They wanted her until they realized she was better than them. She'd always thought Clint would be the same, eventually, especially because he was so uneducated and she was beyond intelligent. “Of course I didn't cheat on you,” he tells her. He hates when her voice gets shaky like that. “It was just me. Something I did.”_ _

__“Will you tell me? I don't want to wonder.”_ _

__He makes a note to never tell Natasha anything again. Not that he should have expected she would keep her mouth shut. He's starting to understand it doesn't occur to her that some things are privately shared and should be kept private. If it were done maliciously, he might have hated her for it, but it was done with ignorance. Maybe he could explain it to her. “You don't want to know.”_ _

__Bobbi hesitates and kisses him. “I'm going to take a shower. Please consider telling me. I don't want you to feel like you can't tell me things.”_ _

__“I've never said it out loud,” he says. “I didn't tell Natasha. I only told her there was one thing I kept from you.”_ _

__“Oh good. I was a little jealous.” She gives him a small smile, strips off her lingerie, and disappears into the bathroom._ _

__He doesn't think about telling her. He forces himself onto his feet, stumbles into the kitchen, downs a pain pill with three glass of whiskey, and sets about making sandwiches. In fifteen minutes, the alcohol will kick in and he won't be able to cook. He finds a bag of chips in the pantry that expire next month and figures they should eat it. He doesn't remember buying it. They do most of the grocery shopping together. It's boring, but it's normal, and on their off days, that's what they need. It's Bobbi's favorite brand and flavor, though, and chips have a long time on the shelf before they expire. Chances are she bought it on her period._ _

__“Thank you,” she says when she comes into the kitchen and gets handed the plate. There's something fragile about her smile. He hates that. Fragile is not a word anyone could ever associate with her, but one little offhand comment about him from Barney—and it would've been offhand; his brother does everything casually offhand—changed that._ _

__“Everything's really okay,” he tells her, and her smile changes from fragile to something icy and more distant. Not the best change, but the expression is familiar to him and weirdly comforting. “It was a long time ago,” he tries again._ _

__“I can't force you to tell me,” she says in a tone that he's certain he's heard her use right before she snaps someone's neck. “But if it was so long ago, surely it won't be a problem to tell me now?”_ _

__The ice in her tone is remarkably well concealed by the shifting smile. He's seen her do it a hundred times before. It's never been aimed at him. “Can someone please tell you and Natasha that I don't appreciate being subjected to your espionage tricks? Am I allowed a little more courtesy than that?”_ _

__“I'm sorry,” Bobbi says genuinely. “But I don't like knowing you've kept something from me. And it's not something you're willing to tell me now. What I am supposed to think?”_ _

__“Please don't ask me to break,” he says a little more plaintively than he means to. “I barely even admit it to myself.”_ _

__Her expression softens and she leans across the table to take his hands in hers. “Clint, please don't shut me out. I thought we were five years past this. And don't try to tell me doesn't matter. It could have been a lifetime ago, but it's clearly still affecting you.”_ _

__He stares down at her fingers. They aren't calloused, not like his. Being a female in espionage requires pretending to be delicate. Most of the people they take down are men with little to no respect for a woman that isn't docile and pretty. Bobbi is very good at pretending to be docile. He chafes her fingers between his. It's tempting to tell her. She'll cry, maybe, or at least she'll want to. “Remember that time your friend in medical told you I called them asking what to do for a little too much alcohol and sleeping pills?”_ _

__“Yes.”_ _

__“I may have understated it to medical.”_ _

__“How much did you understate it?” He doesn't need to look up to feel her frustration._ _

__“Vastly.”_ _

__“Clint, please.”_ _

__“I took an entire bottle of sleeping pills.” Her fingers convulse in his. “With a bottle of whiskey. I really wanted to die. I think I still want to die.”_ _

__“Well, your therapists certainly think so,” she says lightly. “Why did you call medical?”_ _

__“I threw up most of it. It didn't feel all that great, but I didn't think I was going to die since I threw up. I wanted to die, not make myself more miserable.”_ _

__With his normal hearing aids—the ones available to everyone, not SHIELD's mission ones—he can't really hear what goes on outside. It's a testament to how silent and still there house is in that moment that he can hear the boys playing basketball next door. Or maybe they're just being unusually loud. It is, after all, summer break, and it's not late enough for anyone to yell that them to stop. He doesn't usually pay attention to them, unless they're being destructive little assholes._ _

__“Thank you for telling me,” Bobbi says eventually. Her hands are trembling, but her voice is steady. “I don't suppose I could convince you to talk the therapists about this.”_ _

__“If it'd make you feel better.”_ _

__“Don't—This isn't something small, Clint.”_ _

___You're upset_ , he almost says. But that's a stupid comment. Of course she's upset. “It's been a long time.”_ _

__“Three years isn't that long, baby,” she says like she's desperate to make him understand. Her fingers loop over his so it feels more like she's holding his hands instead of the other way around. “I would like you to talk to a therapist about this but I know what trying to give you orders will do.”_ _

__They're both stubborn. They've always understood that about each other. “I can do that,” he tells her._ _

__“Does it feel better to have said it out loud?”_ _

__He squeezes her fingers. “It feels more real. But I don't think I feel any better.”_ _

__“I don't want you to die,” she tells him, and he forces himself to ignore the tears she's blinking back. She doesn't like to cry. She doesn't like to be reassured when she's crying. If he's going to cry, he'll curl up with his head buried into her shoulder or he'll curl around her pillow if she's not there. She refuses to be touched or spoken to. Most of the time she doesn't even want to be in the same with someone. He'll go to bed late or early and she can have her cry alone later._ _

__“I know.”_ _

__–_ _

__His fifth meeting with Bobbi had gone something like this: They'd come to the same place, looking for the same man, for different reasons. She needed to get some information out of him, and Clint was being paid two million dollars to end his pathetic life once and for all. A quick deal had been made with no real stipulations; they'd simply agreed that she would get her information and take off so she could honestly tell SHIELD the man was alive last time she saw him and then Clint would swoop in and take his shot. But first, they had to wait patiently for the man to stop talking to a young pretty blonde and exit the building he was in._ _

__Clint and Bobbi's conversation outside the building had gone something like this:_ _

__“She's half his age.”_ _

__“He's done worse things.”_ _

__“I didn't have to witness them.”_ _

__“I could shoot him from here. The glass isn't that thick. The arrow can break it.”_ _

__“I need that information.”_ _

__“Okay.”_ _

__She'd peeked out from behind the binoculars. “That's it?”_ _

__“Isn't that what you want?”_ _

__“You're not going to shoot me in the back, are you?”_ _

__“I wasn't planning on it.”_ _

__“How long have you been killing people again?”_ _

__“About ten weeks.”_ _

__She'd rolled her eyes. In retrospect, it was a foolish deal. He wouldn't make that sort of deal without a hell of a lot of stipulations and threats nowadays. That sort of deal could easily go wrong._ _

__“I could hit him in the knee or something.”_ _

__“An arrow through the knee would let him know who's hunting him.”_ _

__“Your gun?”_ _

__“I'm not giving you my gun.” A wise choice, in retrospect. At the time he'd felt unduly hurt. “Why did you make this deal if you're so eager to shoot him?”_ _

__They'd been somewhere in Eastern Europe, and it was winter. Bobbi was wearing full tactical gear, not having her own personal suit yet. Clint was wearing threadbare jeans, a shirt that he'd had for three years and was too small on him, and a flannel jacket that had one ripped sleeve. He was freezing. But she hadn't seemed to notice at the time, although on their next meeting just two weeks later, she conveniently went out to the shops and came back with a jacket that was just his size and apparently came as a set with something she'd bought for herself. “I'm a sucker for a pretty woman,” he told her more flirtatiously than he meant to._ _

__“Not a good thing in your new line of work,” she'd told him briskly, and then their target had abandoned his pretty blonde, and Clint followed his._ _

__–_ _

__On their one year wedding anniversary, Bobbi managed to get them both a week off. At the time, they'd both been junior agents and not entitled to nearly as much time off as senior agents, but Fury has always been fond of Bobbi in a way. She was the first person he'd hired after his appointment as director. So she'd wrangled a week off for them, and they went to Maine and took in the beach since it was summer. Clint was not, at the time, entirely sure why she had married him. Love had made no sense as an explanation. If he remembers correctly—and he tries not to remember because it's embarrassing to think he ever doubted her—he then thought that she was going to dump him in Maine. A stupid thought. He'd have to come back to SHIELD or be hunted down again. Maybe he thought she was going to kill him. She was certainly constantly frustrated with his inability to accept that she loved him._ _

__So the first couple of days, spent in a quaint little bed and breakfast, were not the happiest or most comfortable of their time together. She had ignored the tension as well as she could to drag them the city they were in. He ate a lot of lobster and crab that week. She'd refuse to kiss him until he brushed his teeth. Her hatred of fish runs deeply. Not that it mattered, because he'd flinch when she tried to kiss him anyway, so sure something bad was about to happen._ _

__They fought with each other on day four and spent day five in completely opposite ends of town. He drunk his way through a bar whose claims to local fame was lobster mac and cheese and home brewed whiskey. He doesn't remember the mac and cheese but the whiskey had burned like fire on its way down his throat._ _

__He doesn't remember day six clearly, but he remembers she was on hand for his hangover. He slept most of the day away and when he got up it was usually to throw up. Home brewed whiskey is stronger than the stuff he buys at the local shop._ _

__On day seven, they took the plane back a day early, using work as an excuse, and the proprietor of the bed and breakfast, a little old lady with sharp bright eyes, told them she ought to have a word with their bosses for them and that a first year wedding anniversary was a wonderful thing. The image of her trying to talk down Fury amused him all the way to the airport and through baggage check and boarding. Bobbi had taken his hand once they sat on the plane, and they had said nothing, but it was quietly reassuring._ _

__–_ _

__Maria, true to her word, sends Natasha to him when the reports go through. Natasha comes barreling down the hallway, completely forgetting that the way she hip checks one of the agents to get him out of her way could get her sent back to a prison cell. She stops in front of Clint's desk with all the fury of a tornado and lashes out in Russian. He's wearing his hearing aids, but he still feels like he's only getting every third word. It's not hard to get the gist of it, though. She's angry and betrayed. She's probably hurt but she'll never admit it._ _

__If Natasha were the sort of person who might be persuaded to talk about her emotions, he would tell her he had been concerned about her emotional well being and that she couldn't hide from her own demons forever. But she is who she is so instead he tells her in Russian, “I have every right to be concerned that partner might not be able to do her job in the field due to past experiences. If you had dealt with it on your own, I wouldn't have had to go behind your back.”_ _

__They have always understood each other. She knows what's he actually telling her is that he'd been concerned and all too aware that she would not speak to him or anyone else about it unless forced, and maybe not even then._ _

__“I'm mad at you,” she says in English. “Don't think we're done here, Barton.” And she flounces off, scattering agents in her wake. The older ones are weary of her; the younger ones run for cover the moment they see her. And Clint has no doubt she'll get back at him during a sparring session. He just hopes she's not planning to use her Widow's Bites. He was on the receiving end of one prior to SHIELD upgrades, and he's not eager to learn what they feel like now._ _

__“That looks like it went well,” Garcia says with light humor from his desk next to Clint's. “How's the partnership going?”_ _

__“It's been better.”_ _

__He goes to find Maria. “What exactly did you tell her?”_ _

__Maria doesn't look up from her computer or rapid typing. “That it was your idea.”_ _

__“What did you write in the report?”_ _

__“I said that Romanoff was prone to panic attacks in situations where men touched her in a more intimate manner, and that her partner and I both agreed that while it has not been an issue so far, it is clear that without proper handling of the situation, it is likely that she will one day be incapable of completing a mission due to emotional unbalance.”_ _

__“You actually used the words 'emotional unbalance?'”_ _

__“Yes,” Maria says, looking up from her screen to blink at him. “Why would I not?”_ _

__“I thought maybe a more delicate phrasing would have gone over better with her and Fury.”_ _

__“Fury has ordered her weekly therapist to focus on her sexual trauma. He was very understanding of that. In fact, he was so understanding he was probably waiting for someone to say something.”_ _

__“She's upset.”_ _

__“And you're her target.”_ _

__“I can handle her.” He had twelve years of experience. “I just don't like making her feel like a liability.”_ _

__“She's been a liability since the moment you brought her in those doors.”_ _

__–_ _

__It takes Bobbi two weeks to stop looking at him like he'll break into a million pieces before her eyes. Clint does very little to reassure her, mostly because he doesn't have any clue how to. He goes to therapy daily, and if anyone makes note of that—and they probably do since they're spies—no one says anything. Talking about it is painful, but the therapist is calm as the job dictates and is equally calm when Clint remembers belatedly that talking to the SHIELD therapist about the attempted suicide with sleeping pills will mean he will no longer have access to that medication for a while and that it will be entered in the system, and anyone with a high enough clearance will be able see it. Luckily, therapy records can only be seen by Fury, McKay, and the World Security Council. And he has a civilian therapist. It's harder to explain some stuff to her, but it's usually worth the attempts. For sleeping pills and Valium, at least._ _

__Bobbi cooks lasagne the night before he's due to leave on a mission. He watches her make it and they chat about inconsequential things like the neighborhood boys, and they don't talk about the fact that he's walked in on her crying at least four separate times in the last two days._ _

__“I'm not going to break,” he says. “I feel okay. It's good to talk about it.”_ _

__“Good. Good for you.”_ _

__“Maybe you should talk to a therapist.”_ _

__“About what? I'm fine.”_ _

__“If you're mad at me, please just tell me.”_ _

__“I'm not angry. I'm _scared._ I never noticed. I joked about it, but I never… You were suffering and I never noticed.” And she breaks down crying three seconds before the timer for the garlic bread goes off. He crosses the kitchen, takes out the bread, makes plates for both of them, pours a couple glasses of wine, and waits at the table patiently for her to finish. She'll flinch away if he tries touching her. When it doesn't happen after a couple of minutes, he goes to pour them both cups of water and rifles through the fridge until he comes up with enough ingredients to make a decent salad. He makes the salad, portions it out between two bowls, and puts it on the table too. She wipes her eyes on a paper towel and sits down at the table._ _

__“I don't think it was a genuine desire to die,” he says. “Or… I don't think I would have done it if I'd waited five minutes. It's just, you were gone and the nightmares had been bad and the mission had been bad and… That night it sounded really good. There's just some days where dying sounds really good.”_ _

__“How can I help you?”_ _

__He thinks of their first anniversary. He doesn't remember why the way she took his hand and kept hold of it during the plane ride back reassured him. Maybe it was the knowledge she was still there. “Don't leave,” he says._ _

__“Never,” she promises. It's not the sort of promise they can keep in their line of work. She gives him a smile that is one part watery and three parts loving. “Never willingly,” she amends._ _

__–_ _

__On their eighth meeting, Bobbi asked him why he always just called her Agent. She didn't have a codename then, although it was a couple of weeks later that they started calling her Mockingbird. He informed her that he didn't know her name, but gunshots and a shriek had put it out of their heads for the next three hours._ _

__“Bobbi,” she told him when they got into the hotel room he was using. It wasn't that great. It smelled like stale cigarette smoke and the carpeting was threadbare and holey in places and the sheets itched. She'd been in the process of peeling off her jacket, a process made difficult by the blood coating her. Her hands had slipped over the smooth material, leaving streaks of red over the white. She'd walked over to the bathroom and scrubbed her hands as clean as she could when she started taking. “Well, Barbara. But no one calls me that but my mother.”_ _

__“How about Babs?” he asked._ _

__“If you want to get shot in the knee.”_ _

__“Barbie?”_ _

__“A bullet to the balls,” she said sternly._ _

__“You look like a Barbie doll tonight.” And she had. She was wearing jeans decorated with rhinestones on the pockets, a glittery deep bronze top, and a cropped white jacket. She had on heels that were unnecessarily high but made her legs look even more amazing, which she'd kicked off in the fight and carried to the hotel room rather than put them back on. Her hair was done deliberately messy, he'd suspected, given that he could smell her hairspray. She was wearing bright pink lipstick, dark eyeshadow, and a million layers of makeup he couldn't identify._ _

__“I'm not sure if that's supposed to be a compliment or not.”_ _

__“It is, but only if you're not gonna shoot me.”_ _

__She successfully slipped out of the jacket. The blood mostly wasn't hers. It belonged to the man whose head she crushed with her batons. There was blood on her arms too, pale smearing stains from where the blood soaked through her jacket. He'd watched her undress slowly, checking herself for injuries and wiping blood off with one of the coarse towels the motel provided. He'd been enthralled then at how nonchalantly she had cleaned and stitched up the one cut she'd received. It had to be done with one hand since the cut was on her shoulder. He hadn't taken much note of her body then. That was for their next meeting. He'd been interested in the way she hissed when she tugged the thread through, ignoring his offer for help, and he'd been enamored with the way she plunged the jacket into a bath of ice water—the only temperature the motel had for water—and wiped at her top in hopes the blood would be less noticeable._ _

__“I'll take it as a compliment,” she told him. “But only because I think you mean it as one.”_ _

__–_ _

__Two weeks into his partnership with Natasha, she told him to get a codename because he couldn't go around introducing himself as Clint. She probably told him out of pity. He thought about it for the six weeks before they met again and eventually settled on Hawkeye, despite having no fond memories of the circus. He couldn't think of anything better. She approved, and by the time he came under SHIELD's radar, he was exclusively known as such. The name became a symbol of his new power, and it was reassuring. The Swordsman and Trickshot had managed to strip him of any autonomy while he was with them, and the name had been their choice, and he had gone along with everything, not knowing any better, not wanting to rock the boat of that new home._ _

__He hadn't picked up the bow in the five years between leaving the circus and being an assassin. He'd used knives as a thief, and he had enough knowledge of bashing things in with tools and baseball bats. But he hadn't touched a bow, hadn't wanted to. The first person he killed was a man who was sexually harassing one of the little girls in the neighborhood he was squatting in. She'd been no more than six and Clint had been angry that night about something. He'd bashed the man's head in without even registering it. When he'd looked the blood on his hands, he'd laughed with psychopathic glee. He can't say he ever regretting killing him or anyone that came after._ _

__But bashing people's heads in—while satisfying in an uncomfortably unhinged way—was not a convenient way to kill people. He'd learned to carve a bow and arrows from Trickshot, and it hadn't been difficult to steal enough money to buy wood. Finding scrap metal was even easier. In two weeks he had a bow. In three, clients._ _

__In five, a semi-regular partner with vivid red hair and a smile that promised to destroy you if you let it. He'd been destroyed enough before. He sometimes wished he hadn't saved Natasha. Or maybe he didn't save her at all. Maybe she'd seen it coming. She probably had. But he'd saved her anyway and…_ _

__It had never been that lack of attraction or long legs or even how often he'd seen her slit men's throats in the midst of passion that kept him out of her bed. It was the visceral knowledge that he would lose power to her just when he found it for the first time in his life._ _

__–_ _

__Natasha had taken to calling him “little hawk” when she was trying to play with him. Her idea of play was lethal, and he'd taken to calling her “tsarina” in response, mostly because she had a tendency to be bossy. He's continued to call her “tsarina” but “little hawk” has not made an appearance since he walked to her into a prison cell until today._ _

__“That's a dangerous plan, little hawk. Are you sure you want to risk your precious life?”_ _

__There is a small chance that Natasha has hacked into SHIELD's cameras to find out what he's been seeing the therapist for, but he doubts it. She'd be more obvious. “No,” he says sweetly, deepening his Midwestern drawl he used to try so hard to hide. “But I'm willing to risk yours.”_ _

__She glares at him, and if it weren't for the fact that Fury, McKay, and Maria are standing between them, she might have taken out her gun and shot him in the knee. She hasn't forgiven him. This mission is unlikely to put her in a position to be groped by men, and so will their next ones if they survive. She wants to continue to pretend it doesn't frighten her to be touched, but Fury has listened to Maria. “I think—”_ _

__“Romanoff,” Fury says with something like warning._ _

__“What? Am I not allowed to have opinions now?”_ _

__“I believe Director Fury was cautioning against your loudness,” McKay says calmly. “And perhaps, against discussing this further. We have every faith in your and Agent Barton's ability to handle this mission. Perhaps you can discuss it on the plane. It's getting late.”_ _

__Natasha does not sneer at McKay, barely. She gives him a tight smile, nods once to Fury, and gestures for Maria to lead the way. The jet waits for them at the end of the many runways they have. Maria is tensely watching them. They board, say hello to the pilots, and spend the rest of the flight shooting their ideas back and forth with increasing anger and tension. Hill interrupts them sometime during the fifth hour and forces them to eat. Plane rations are typically sandwiches. Clint picks at his for a while before eating it. He's had worse. He's rifled through trashcans to eat. Cafeteria food isn't that bad, but he still wishes for Bobbi's lasagne. He probably could have had some for breakfast._ _

__Natasha accepts the food for what is actually is—a plea for a few minutes of silence. She stares at him the entire time she's eating, and he ignores it, keeping his eyes on his tray and wondering what she would say when the argument continued. Her plan was sound, of course. She wouldn't have survived this long if she weren't capable of a good plan. But he didn't want to let her out of his sight long enough to complete her plan. That would mean trusting her not to put a knife in his back if the opportunity arose._ _

__They bicker on and off for the next few hours. They pause to nap for a little while—their mission will start the moment they touch down, no time spent at a safe house—and Maria forces food and coffee down their throats twice more so she take a break in massaging her temples. Finally, they agree on Natasha's plan, if only because he is sick of arguing. If she stabs him in the back, literally or metaphorically, then well, it's better than continuing to argue in circles. He's pretty sure the pilots are ready to kill them. They certainly are eager to drop them off and get rid of them._ _

__Maria makes up an operation base inside an aging motel room while they steal two cars from a dealership and run off into the night. Natasha goes to steal information from an office building, and Clint goes to track their target through a string of seedy bars. He smells like smoke after the first one, and he smells like cheap perfume and cheaper beer after the third._ _

__When he gets to the fourth bar, Maria's voice crackles out a comment that sounds a lot like, “Widow has received the goods.” It makes perfect sense, but he asks her to repeat it anyway. When he's sure she has in fact said what he thinks she said, he informs her where they are and what they are doing, which is watching a young blonde with decidedly fake breasts slowly peel off her too small white shirt. Maria makes a disgusted noise in the back of her throat._ _

__The blonde reminds him of Bobbi in a way. She's harshly pretty, her cheeks angular and her mouth seemingly prone to a stern expression even when she's trying to be seductive. A mass of soft-looking hair can't make her features appear any less harsh. Despite her breasts being obviously fake, she has similar angles—hips that seems too wide for her proportions, legs that could easily look gangly, shoulders that are too sharp, a prominent collarbone that makes her look half starved. He has to lean forward to make sure it isn't Bobbi in one of her very clever disguises._ _

__He nurses a pint of weak beer for the duration of his stay then leaves as his target is paying. He finds a place to hide on the street and waits until the man has gained some distance before following. The fifth bar contains a waitress who barely looks old enough to be in high school but is wearing the bar's uniform of a tiny gold skirt and a blue top that ties in the front, revealing her stomach. She's unfortunately the waitress for both of them, and Clint manages to stop her from flirting with him too much._ _

__The sixth bar is a vodka bar. He makes note of the name and relative location—it seems like the sort of thing Natasha would like. There's a bunch of Slavic looking men with big beards and rough edges drinking potent smelling vodka out of water tumblers. Clint snacks on far too many pickled vegetables while he waits for the target to leave. He decides that mushrooms should never be pickled._ _

__The seventh bar is hopefully the last one for the night since it's already three in the morning. The bar is unfortunately too dark to find his target in easily, and the flashing lights are giving Clint a headache. He curses SHIELD's R &D department for being too obsessed with finding hearing aids that worked well on missions and could be hidden. With these, he picks up sounds that he couldn't hear even when his hearing was intact. It's mostly a distraction. He wants to take them out, but they have to be put in with a needle, right up against his eardrum. The most he can hope for with these is that his ears don't start bleeding. It's always hard to explain away._ _

__He's too old for the crowd in this bar, but then again so is his target. Clint strips off his outer jacket, fluffs up his hair, and finds a woman to dance with, although woman is a relatively loose term for the girl wearing an entire stick of eyeliner he finds. She's probably barely eighteen at the most. She smiles in a way that is meant to be seductive, but she mostly looks like a kid playing dress up. He tells her the lights make him look better than he is and she giggles sweetly at him._ _

__The eighth bar—and goddamn it, Clint is done with bars for the next ten years—is another strip club, this one containing an older woman with hair bleached platinum blonde. His target is less interested in this place, and Clint hopes that means he'll be tucked away at home soon. So far he's gotten none of the information he came for, no business partners or personal addresses. On the plus side, Natasha is back at the motel waiting for him, so she didn't betray them._ _

__He follows the man home afterward and tells his address to Maria. The house is ostentatiously big. A huge metal gate stands between columns shaped like horses. There is an actual turret covered in glass windows, and from what Clint can see, it looks like a bedroom. It looks kind of nice, actually, but the rest of the house ruins the effect. The rest of the house looks like it came out of a Gothic novel, stone and wood carved into shapes and not just left alone. There's a gargoyle on the roof. The front double door is frosted glass set in wood and overlaid with metal fleur de lis._ _

__Clint swings himself up on a branch hanging off the highest tree he can see. He lists off the layout to Maria—bedrooms up top, a whole string of them, each with their own color scheme and connecting bathrooms. The ground level is made up of two living rooms, an office filled with paperwork that this guy probably doesn't read, a state of the art kitchen, a dining area with a china cabinet, and a room that has its thick, light resisting curtains drawn. Breaking into the house would be foolish, so he moves on. Once he's sure he hasn't missed any rooms, he lists off the security numbers—too many, although half of them are sleeping on the job—and possible weak points._ _

__That makes half his job done. The next half will be getting information out of him, nicely, while pretending to be someone else._ _

__–_ _

__In the morning, Clint dresses in a shabby gray suit that has seen better days, darkens his hair with shoe polish, and plays in the dirt patch passing as a garden in front of the motel. Once his fingernails are suitably stained with dirt, he heads off. Their target is suspected of using poor uneducated men to smuggle drugs across borders. While Clint tries to get himself hired, Natasha will search the house he stays at—intel said he didn't own one, just stayed with a friend, location previously unknown—and Maria will comb through the information stolen from his place of business last night._ _

__Finding the man isn't easy, and playing the game to get close to him is annoying. But Clint plays the fool well, and he can pretend with no strain on himself that he is uneducated and almost always drunken. The first was true for a long time. The second is true when things get bad. It's very easy to hide a bottle. He wished it weren't so easy. Sometimes he feels like he's turning into his father, but the alcohol doesn't make him angry. Just… quiet. Subdued. The alcohol silences the rage and the bitterness and the hurt that likes to come to shore every once in a while to remind him he'll never be free of his own memories._ _

__Sometime around three o'clock he is finally taken to see their target. Killing him isn't necessary just yet, and detaining him is only going to happen with enough proof. There's a camera pinned to his shirt, and he inconspicuously turns in circles trying to catch images of everything in the series of rooms he goes through. It would have been easier to follow the man in shifts, as he and Natasha were supposed to do, but this works just as well. Presumably, Natasha has completed her portion of the mission. But Maria says nothing in his comm to tell him they have any information. So he meets with their target and plays the fool a little while longer. International law is easy to fake not knowing. He'd absolutely hated studying it, and if it hadn't been for Bobbi making a flirty game of studying, he might have given up._ _

__The man questions him for three hours, including about his frame. Clint plays up the “brawn and not brains” card he's been accused of a million times in his lie. The man has a wealth of charm and false kindness hiding a shrewd mind and a dangerous black hole of a heart. Finally, around sundown, he's allowed to leave, and something about the way the men are watching him sets him on edge. He wraps his hand around the knife in his pocket and smiles in a simple-minded sort of way as he leaves._ _

__The attack comes before he can register it. The blow to his head is hard and swift._ _


	4. Part Four: Bobbi

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warnings for talk of suicide

LATE AUTUMN/EARLY WINTER 2002

It's strange being home alone. Bobbi's never thought about it before but Clint's absence makes the house seem emptier. It's never mattered before because he'll always come back. But he's been missing for three weeks now, and there's no news, no leads, no nothing. She idly folds the purple and gray blanket they bought at a market square. They only ever use it when it's just the two of them. She left it draped over the armchair just in case, but she thinks putting it away is the best option for now. Looking at it only hurts. She puts away the vinyl records he collects too. It feels wrong to shove them in a closet but she can't bear looking at them. 

The street is silent. It's getting cooler out and soon enough it will be Halloween but for now all the kids are inside doing their homework. The lack of basketballs bouncing and children shouting makes the house feel even emptier. She plumps up the pillows, just to give herself something to do. That's all she's done in the ten days since she's come home from her own mission—give her hands something to do. She cleaned out her closet and went shopping for all new things. She finally bought the plate set she's been meaning to buy for a while now since several of their plates were missing. She filed all their paperwork in neat little folders. She went back and bought matching cups for the plates. She redid their training room and scrubbed their house from top to bottom and threw out everything old or unneeded. It hadn't taken enough time.

She wonders what Clint does when she's not back when expected. Cook, she guesses. There always seems to be an abundance of food when she finally makes it back. Last time she went missing for a few days, thanks to a pissed off assassin, a stray gunshot, and a misplaced bomb, she came home to five different pasta dishes, three stews, and a variety of potato dishes. She thought it was ridiculous. She's always managed just fine when Clint is home late from a mission. Maybe she's just used to his getting into trouble and coming back with new wound. Maybe she's as heartless as men have said she was in the past. It doesn't bother her, being alone, rattling around in the house. It's a good excuse to hog the sheets when she sleeps and drink all the coffee—though one cup works just fine for her—and use those ridiculous facial masks to keep herself looking good. 

Vanity has always been something her mother excelled at, but Bobbi sorely lacked the desire to look good. Her mother always says she should look good for her husband, but her mother thinks she spends her days rattling around in a lab. Clint's seen her throwing up and bleeding out and clawing at her face in crazed terror and crying until she's a heap of mucus and sniffles. He's extracted a bullet from her stomach and stitched her up on a field of dead bodies that they were responsible for. He doesn't care that her clothes are uninspired and unflattering or that she can't be bothered with makeup for anything short of a mission or a very special occasion or that she can't paint her own nails for the life of her. And he's seen her with a bright green facial mask before, but she prefers using them when he's not around to tease her. The masks are part of a skincare regimen she keeps for her missions, not for her husband. 

But right now, she'll take his teasing about her being an alien or an old maid, because it would mean he was alive. She thinks up all the responses she might use, even, but when she opens her eyes, he's still not there. Her stomach clenches and she forces a breath. Once she talked Clint into doing a mask with her, blithely commenting on how old he looked, and the memory makes her laugh. It rings in the empty house.

She starts and forces herself to find something to do. She chooses the bookshelf which hasn't been dusted properly in ages. She dumps out the books onto the floor and dusts the covers. She decides to organize them alphabetically by genre. The mystery novels are hers. She has every Agatha Christie book, all of them old and dusty and battered. Her mother hadn't wanted her reading them growing up. She'd hidden them in creative places.

The science journals are, of course, hers. She stacks them and sets them aside—they'd do better in her office than in here. Most of them are a couple years old anyway. She flips through a couple of them, notices things that have been proven false, and decides she can donate them or recycle them instead. They go into a pile by the front door. 

The linguistics and language books are Clint's. He'd surprised everyone—mostly himself, although considering how low his self esteem was that wasn't difficult—by finding linguistics both fascinating and easy. Languages and their components come to him naturally, making his eventual fluency a given. Except for Polish, apparently. Maybe he hadn't studied it enough. She dusts off a book that promises to teach basic Spanish in no time at all and sets it aside to recycle or donate. He won't mind. They both know Spanish like they know English by now. The other books are harder, both to put away and decide on. 

She buys him a new linguistics book every anniversary and on his birthday. He won't buy them for himself. So she buys them, along with a nicer present, but it's almost always the book that holds his attention first. In the beginning, it had been to encourage him. Despite his reputation as the world's most lethal assassin, a reputation made possible by methodical murders done as quietly and quickly as possible, people were weary of the new kid with no discernible education when he came to SHIELD. Fury set him on a course for quickly learning the basics they teach you through high school, but he hadn't been the best student. Physics baffled him, especially when the teacher tried to use shooting arrows as a problem and Clint had told the man if he wanted to figure out how fast the arrow would go, he'd go outside and test the wind and the bow. He'd seemed to realize that was the wrong answer, but he never got the hang of physics. Or, she noticed, anything beyond basic math, and physics is part math. History had been easy but boring for him—his memory is above reproach—but the teacher hadn't been amused by Clint breaking down all the things that went wrong in attacks. Biology he managed because of her, and chemistry was made fun by Dr. Cheryl Johnson, a woman who knew how to handle a twenty two year old whose pride refused to let him admit he was frightened and overwhelmed. Cheryl retired several months later, but Clint was very fond of her teaching methods, which mostly consisted of friendly chatting and blowing things up.

Bobbi suspected Clint had a bit of a crush on her, given his penchant for terrifying, capable leggy blondes. 

But English was something different. Putting words together seemed to endlessly fascinate Clint. Studying the components of a language and how it changed over time amazed him. He used to spend hours wondering how to make a sentence as concise as possible. He used to see if he could learn a language by knowing its rules and exceptions. Then someone had to comment—loudly, close to him, or else with all the bustle around the agency he wouldn't have been able to hear it—about how useless a skill it was and how it practically proved that Fury was out of his mind letting Clint in.

The enthusiasm waned immediately. He started going for more useful pursuits, but science wasn't interesting to him unless she or Cheryl were teaching him. History wasn't useful either, and she'd watched Clint sink into an endless masochistic pattern of trying to prove himself to someone who didn't care either way. So when they married, five weeks into this endeavor, her wedding present was Ferdinand de Saussure's _Course on General Linguistics_ , which the helpful lady at the bookstore told her was the basis of modern linguistics. He stared at the book with wide eyes for a long time, but he took it for what is was, a gesture that she, at least, was supporting his interest. 

No one had ever done that for him before.

Thankfully, that book isn't on the bookshelf. It's in his nightstand, like a Bible, the same way the first edition signed copy of Agatha Christie's _A Pocket Full of Rye_ he tracked down for her thirtieth birthday is in hers.

A knock sounds at the door. Bobbi abandons her attempt at cleaning and welcomes the visitor. It's a neighbor, one of the middle aged housewives with bluntly cut hair and a wardrobe even more boring that Bobbi's. Her daughter's school is selling some stuff out of a catalog to raise money. For lack of anything better to do, she agrees to look at it. This takes the woman aback—Bobbi and Clint are generally considered recluses—but she cheerfully tells Bobbi all about the fundraiser. She buys a handful of pretty things, including some she could probably send her mother for her birthday to avoid getting a guilt tripping phone call, and she buys a handful of silly things, just because Clint will like them. The woman asks after her husband. Bobbi tells her he's away on business.

When she leaves, a new gap seems to appear. It occurs to Bobbi that Clint is rarely late coming home from missions. Coming home with injuries happens remarkably often, but coming home late without anyone knowing where he was is rare. And even if he does, chances are she's on a mission and won't know he was late. Even if she's home, it doesn't bother her much. She's used to being alone. She's never craved love and attention the way he has, and sometimes being alone is just nice. Those extra days didn't have any cause for worry because she knows Clint is stubborn and always comes back alive. 

Maybe she wouldn't be feeling this if she didn't know about his suicide attempt. She's still working through her thoughts on it, but he won't talk about it and she doesn't know how to broach the subject. It was once, four years ago. Afterward, he'd developed a habit of washing down hospital grade painkillers and sleep aids with whiskey. He told her the mission had gone bad, which was true, and that he was fine, which was patently untrue even without the suicide attempt. She doesn't know if the suicide attempt was brought on by the drug and alcohol cocktail or the other way around. This mission would qualify as going bad, and if he made it home alive, would he go back to the cocktail? It was rare he still did it, having heeded her warnings. Presumably. Maybe he just did a better job hiding it from her. But she hadn't caught him in the act again, so maybe it was all fine. 

She throws the crystal vase they got as a wedding present at the wall. It shatters loudly and satisfyingly. It was an ugly vase. Clint had mocked it the moment they opened it. It came from her mother, after all, and her mother's taste in décor was unmatched in its gaudiness. The vase was decorated too heavily for its size and had an odd, almost duck-like shape. She stares at the pieces and breaks down into tears.

–

Fury calls at three in the morning. She hasn't slept a wink, and there are still books and shattered glass all over her living room. She gulps down a glass of water to soothe her aching throat and answers.

“Romanoff has a lead on Barton,” he tells her, voice gruff. He probably hasn't slept either, though after thirteen years as director of SHIELD he's probably used to it. “She just left.”

“Is it a good lead?” As his wife, she has complete access to the details of Clint's MIA protocols.

“Doesn't have to be good. It's the only one.”

“I should have done what Clint did when MIA protocols were initiated for me and searched myself.”

“Barton broke about a hundred rules.”

“He found me.”

“So did we. Two minutes later. Romanoff says there's a good chance it's true.”

“You let her out on her own?”

“She's Barton's problem. If she wants to stay alive, she'll bring him back dead or alive.”

She hangs up and takes a look at her reflection in the fridge. Not a pretty sight. She rakes a hand through her messy hair and swipes at her red cheeks. A shower, she thinks. A shower and some sleep and maybe when she wakes up she'll know what happened to her husband. She forces herself to take the necessary steps to the shower, carefully walking around the broken glass. Maybe she should sweep that up first, but she doesn't even have the energy to shower, let alone do anything else. She doesn't even shower properly. She just turns on the spray and sits underneath it for a while, willing her trembling to stop. It feels weak to cry this much. She hated crying as a child. It served no purpose whatsoever. She ended up having a mental breakdown during her last year of her PhD. The setback caused her to earn her PhD a year late, and it gave her a new appreciation for handling your emotions. But crying is still a peculiar thing for her. She doesn't like to do it, and she hates someone witnessing it. 

When the water runs cold, she gets out, towels herself off, and dresses in one of Clint's flannel shirts. She curls up in the middle of the bed, where she can pretend that she's not trying to burrow in his pillow. And somehow, she sleeps.

–

At nine in the morning, Fury calls her to inform her husband is alive, for now, and a pilot will be waiting to take her to Romania, which is the closest SHIELD base to where he was found. She doesn't even eat breakfast. She brushes her teeth, drags out a suitcase she has for emergencies, and catches the subway there. By eleven, they're in the air and her terrified nerves are regretting the lack of food. They have a layover in London to refuel and she picks up a sandwich to nibble at.

Between her lack of fluency at Romanian and the fact she's still on New York time where it's midnight, the conversation between her and the doctor is a headache for them both. But the general gist is that Clint was badly tortured. When Natasha found him, his heart had stopped beating due to electroshock torture. His heart is beating well enough now, the doctor tells her. There's a wedding ring glinting on his finger. She watches him play with it a little as he tells her that her husband has multiple broken bones, a fair bit of internal bleeding, and a hell of a lot of bruises and cuts. His fingernails were ripped off. The internal bleeding had been stopped, and the cuts and bruises would heal well. Clint's had a million broken bones before, courtesy of his father and his mentors and a variety of people he didn't know to stay away from, so she's not worried about that. She's more worried about potential brain damage from lack of oxygen when his heart stopped, but the doctor reassures her that Natasha was with him the entire time and managed to use the emergency medical kit she was given to restart his heart quickly. The doctor deems the prognosis good and takes her to Clint's bed.

She prepared herself for the worst, but it's not the worst so she forces herself to loosen up as she approaches his bed. The heart monitor is beating a little more slowly than they would want, but it's steady, and the doctor told her it might have been from the heavy drugs they were giving him. Bobbi sinks into a chair and touches the tip of her finger to Clint's palm. He's pale and too still. 

“You're here.” 

Bobbi spins. Natasha is standing in the doorway in an oversized agency-issued shirt and sweatpants. Her hair is soaking wet and she looks almost as tired Bobbi as does. “You okay?”

Natasha shrugs and sits down in a chair on the other side of Clint. “I've been awake longer.”

“Can you tell me what happened?”

“When I got there, there was only hired security. Good for a man who's barely conscious and in chains but they couldn't stop me.”

“From the beginning please? Fury only told me you had a lead.”

“Alan Avci. He gave information to the KGB in exchange for some protection from the government. I went to him as a last resort.”

“Why?”

“He might have told the KGB where I was,” Natasha says. “I didn't want that, but I used up all my sources. Avci said a man named Gashi was boasting about having defeated the assassin Hawkeye. Gashi is a common surname in Serbia. I've never heard of him before, but apparently a few years ago an arrow found its way into the neck of his business partner, resulting in him losing almost five billion dollars in both legitimate and illegitimate businesses. Obviously the kill was attributed to Hawkeye, but I don't have access to his mission to confirm it. The man's name was said to be Francois DeBois, but I can't imagine a more fake name.”

“I don't recall anything, but we could have had him under an alias. I don't usually see the details of missions until they're mine. I'll look it up later.”

“Gashi kept his legitimate businesses clean from what Avci told me, but DeBois' death sent authorities into a tailspin. Some things were found among DeBois' possessions that led them to arresting several other key players in the illegitimate businesses. Gashi held on to his honest businesses by the skin of his teeth.”

“How did Gashi find Clint?”

“I have no idea. Goldman and Robinson, our pilots, were cleared. They went directly from dropping us off to India to pick someone up. They were on SHIELD property at all times, and they made no phone calls. Hill was on the comm with me in the entire time and there isn't any indication she called anyone. I was originally imprisoned but I didn't call anyone either.”

“You didn't betray my husband did you?”

“Do you think I'd tell if I did?”

“No, but I'm really hoping you didn't.”

“I didn't. The World Security Council wouldn't let me out until they were sure of that. By the way, do you know that the Council is completely useless?”

Bobbi snorts. “You sound like Clint. He enjoys mocking them endlessly. To their faces. Granted, he doesn't do it openly. He says things they can never tell if they should take seriously or not.”

“They don't do anything but issue executive orders. One of those old men told me I didn't have any need of an emergency medical kit. I guess he thought Clint would be dead if I ever found him, but anyone with a half brain should know if he was alive, he was being tortured. It's not like they took him away to feed him caviar in a palace.”

“Did you find out anything else?”

“No but I have a meeting with a contact in a couple of hours. Gashi's got a lot of fear around him in the former Soviet and surrounding areas. Avci was under the impression he rose up during the fall of the Soviet.”

“Be careful.”

–

Clint wakes up at seven in the morning, Romanian time. “Am I dying?” he croaks out. 

“Not today, sorry,” she says. “Let me get the doctor.”

Clint's Romanian is more fluent than hers. The doctor keeps him talking for a while, asking a variety of questions to test his memory. The doctor claims he'll recover completely, tells the nurse to bring something to drink for Clint since he'd been starved, and leaves them alone.

“I really don't want to die anymore,” Clint tells her, voice hoarse. He twists his thumb with hers. “Mostly.”

“Consider it a bad joke then.”

“How long have I been out?”

“I'm not sure. You've been here almost two days. Natasha found you unconscious. Your heart stopped beating. She managed to get it restarted and brought you here. She could tell you more.”

“Where is she?”

“I don't know. She had a meeting with a contact at three in the morning. If she's come back, I haven't seen her.”

The nurse stops by with a glass of sugar water. Vitamins and supplements are being given to Clint via IV. They both help him sit up and after he takes a sip, Bobbi takes possession of the glass so he won't be tempted to gulp it down. The nurse leaves after refilling the IV bags. “Fill me in,” he says.

She tells him what Natasha told her. “DeBois stood accused of smuggling orphans out of the Soviet according to the file,” she says. “But that doesn't explain why you would have killed him.”

“That's all the file says?”

“Yes. My clearance should have been high enough to view it—it was a class three mission.”

“Good morning, sunshine,” Natasha says. “Why does Clint look like he's seen a ghost?”

“Must be your skin,” he says without missing a beat. “Come over here. Doll, can you find a laptop?”

Natasha shoots her a questioning look but sinks down into a chair, dutifully taking possession of the glass. It takes almost fifteen minutes to get a laptop, and when she comes back the glass is half empty and Natasha is sticking her tongue out at him.

Bobbi hands over the laptop. Clint types in his badge number and code and pulls up the file. “It didn't say this last time I looked at it. And that's not my report.”

“Did you learn anything new?” Bobbi asks Natasha.

“Gashi's spending a lot of money trying to make Kosovo independent. He has some connection to the KGB too, but my contact was cagey about that. He's well known in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, but beyond that, most people haven't even heard of him. No one knows what he looks like or what his game is.”

“What did your report say?” Bobbi asks Clint. He's looking drowsy again, and his grip of the laptop is loosening. She takes it from him and gestures at Natasha to give him the glass.

“He was smuggling orphans out of the Soviet, alright, but he was selling them into prostitution. We took the case over from the FBI. They took it from the police in Baltimore. They busted into a known drug dealer's house for possession of cocaine and found eight girls under the age of eleven there. None of them knew English. FBI wasn't making any progress so they turned it over. Gashi's name was never connected with it.”

“Are you sure?” Natasha asks. “You're out of it, and you've tortured. Did you see Gashi's face? Hear his name?”

“That's enough for now, Clint,” Bobbi says, talking over Natasha's last words. “Have the last sip and go back to sleep. The doctor expects you'll sleep for the next few days.”

“They're valid questions,” Natasha argues.

“Yes, they are. But they're essentially useless questions. Fury called this morning. The team that was sent in after you to clean up the mess found cameras around the area. They'll remember a lot more than Clint does.”

–

“Doctor Morse, Agent Romanoff. Did you learn anything new?”

Bobbi's been awake for longer than she wants to be but telling Fury takes first priority. Well, second. She and Natasha had first opted for strong coffee and mămăligă, recommended wholeheartedly by the doctor. “Natasha learned some new things,” she tells him. When Natasha finishes her recitation, Bobbi adds, “I checked DeBois' file and told Clint what it said. He checked the file and said it was tampered with. The full reason for wanting DeBois wasn't given. As Natasha pointed out earlier, he's a little out of it. I think you better check the file and see if you remember.”

Fury's mouth goes into a hard line. He goes off screen for a second. When he comes back, his mouth is even more deeply lined. “It's been tampered with. Barton's report is missing a few pages and has a different middle. He traveled all over the world trying to find the kids. You may not remember the mission, Doctor, but I think it was the only time your husband was gone for about six months.”

“I remember.” It wasn't a happy six months, but she was busy, and Clint checked in often enough that she wasn't worried about his well being any more than usual. He'd sent her a birthday present from Venezuela, and his face-to-face check in with Fury fell on their anniversary. “Did he find all the kids?”

“Two boys and three girls were dead, but all of them were returned to their parents. Gashi wasn't a name connected with it. All intel suggested it was DeBois' operation.”

“What did the videos show?”

“A man they called Gashi torturing Barton. He's about six feet, salt and pepper hair, average build. Had a mask on, never took it off. He's the only one who touched Hawkeye. Nothing distinct in accent. Wore a plain black suit.”

“Should we do anything?”

“Sleep. When you wake up, I'll have a mission for you both. Morse, until Barton recovers, you're stuck with Romanoff.”

–

Bobbi wakes up at six in the afternoon. She checks in on Clint but he's out like a light. The cafeteria is bustling for dinner, so she takes the recommendations of the young agent in front of her in the line and brings a tray for her and Natasha both back to Natasha's room. When they're sitting at the kitchen table, Natasha says, “I saw the mission brief. We're running around, chasing down ghosts.”

“I suspected as much. I'll contact my informants, but chances are they don't know anything either.”

“We should talk to Ivan.”

“Petrovich?”

“He kept an eye on crime around Russia. He might not tell us anything outright, but he could let some small stuff slip.”

“Are you ready to talk to him?”

“Your husband ruined my chances of not talking to therapists. I'll be fine.”

“If Gashi rose during the fall of the Soviet, will he know anything?”

“Ivan has always stayed close to Russia. He must know something.”

“What are we supposed to do?”

“Search, mostly. I've been given access to some missions that weren't completed due to a lack of intel. And I've been given access to the DeBois file. Fury's working on fixing it, but I read the parts he thought weren't Clint's. They don't make any sense. Fury said that Clint was searching for the children, but there's nothing about them in the report. Fury made some notes with what he remembers. He's trying to find out what happened to the original file, but the basic differences is no talk about the kids therefore nothing about the prostitution. How easy is it to hack SHIELD?”

“I'm not sure. Hacking isn't in my repertoire. It's much more likely that someone in SHIELD altered the file. It was a class three mission. Low enough that at least half of SHIELD has access to it. Altering it would require a high enough clearance plus executive powers or hacking.”

“Who has those executive powers?”

“Fury and McKay. Alexander Pierce—he's a liaison between Fury and the Council. He's technically above Fury, but he mostly handles the political side of things and leaves the day to day running alone. He's based in DC. The heads of each base have a limited number of executive powers as well.”

“How many bases are there?”

“Almost two hundred.”

“Is it likely one of them altered it? I can't see Fury or McKay doing it.”

“I don't know how much power they have. And I can't imagine why they would care. It wasn't a mission they were involved in.”

“Do you think there's any resentment from smaller bases?”

“I can't say. The smaller bases usually have less spies. All bases have apartments, training grounds, and prison cells. Beyond that, they're all different. There are bases that are exclusively for medical or scientific research. Some bases keep track of criminals. Some bases handle politics. There's some bases for tech. If there's something we might need, there's a base that specializes in it. There are only three big bases—New York City, Washington DC, and London, in Enfield. The DC base is the newest—it was built in the seventies. The New York one was the first, and the London location was the first of SHIELD's international branches.”

“Why London?”

“One of the co-founders was from England. She negotiated a deal with the government.”

“Are there any SHIELD bases in Eastern Europe or Central Asia besides here?”

“Estonia has a small base that mainly churns out fabrics for the stealth suits we wear. Poland and Austria have bases, if you consider them Eastern European. Kazakhstan has a base that provides petroleum and various minerals. I can't think of any others. There should be a list somewhere for you to see. I doubt they're discontent. If you work at SHIELD, you're free to move to any base. They'll help you learn a new language and find a place to live. We have spies from all over the world in New York. If it comes from a base, we should also consider a break in. Some of these places are so discreet and quiet they don't feel the need for added security. Hacking into SHIELD isn't easy, I've heard, but it can be done.”

“It takes hours and SHIELD throws enough things at you to make it difficult.” Natasha's lips tug up at the corner. “I've tried. I gave up after a week.”

“What are you thinking?”

“What are you thinking?”

Bobbi rolls her eyes. “I'm thinking I want to curl up with my husband and reassure myself he's not going to die, but I'm going out what appears to be a ridiculous mission instead.”

“Fine. I think the most likely explanation is a traitor to SHIELD. Our mission was at my clearance level and therefore accessible to everyone, right?”

“Yeah.”

“So it wouldn't be difficult. I'm told that higher agents have more knowledge about the security systems around SHIELD and can disable them if need be.”

“Around the buildings, yes, to a certain extent. I don't think any of the security measures of our computers are open, although the techs might know. I think it's moot point anyway if we're chasing ghosts.”

“I want to find out who betrayed Clint.”

“Careful, Natasha, you sound like you care.”

“Do you think I don't?” There's venom in the question, and her body goes tense and her cheeks pink with anger.

It would be unwise to say she would be shocked if Natasha actually did care. “It was a joke,” Bobbi says lightly. “Consider it a poor joke. I've been making a lot of them lately.”

“I won't be mad,” Natasha says, “if you say you believe it. I know I haven't been like that much.”

Bobbi studies her for a moment. The color is fading off her cheeks and she's gone lax again. Something like sadness lingers on the edge of her jewel green eyes. “I'm not surprised you want to protect him, but I doubt it's out of genuine fondness.”

“Why would I want to find who betrayed Clint then?”

“He said you were always fond of paying off your debts, whether or not the other person felt you owed them or not.” Bobbi takes the plates to the sink and rinses them off just to do something to fill the heavy silence. “Which isn't to say that you can't care about him too. I've never seen any proof either way.”

“I owe him a debt,” Natasha says, her voice trembling just enough to make her sound vulnerable, “for saving my life when we both knew it wasn't worth anything.”

“No one's worth nothing.” The words come out more angrily than she intended, and she doesn't realize it until she catches sight of Natasha's startled surprise. “No one's worth nothing,” she repeats calmly.

“Who told you you were worth nothing?”

Bobbi smiles wryly. “My mother.”

“Would you like to talk about it?”

“If you'd like to hear about it. And if you promise not to use it against me.”

“Okay.”

Bobbi turns towards the window. As always, she can't look anyone in the face when she talks about growing up. Unbidden, her mind conjures up the house her mother still lives in—Roman-styled, with huge white columns and a wraparound porch, flowers growing in neat even clusters front and back. It was too large for the people who lived there, and it felt more like a museum than a home. “It's not a tragic story,” she says. “I just wasn't the daughter my mother wanted. She was a deb, a debutant, and a pageant queen, and I was her only daughter, and she wanted me to follow in her footsteps. I never found fashion or makeup all that interesting but I did the rounds as a child. I wasn't given much choice. In between pageants I would follow one of the mothers around. She was a marine biologist and she was nice enough to answer my endless questions. She gave me books. She babysat me a few times and took me to work with, talked my mother into letting me study it and enter competitions. I took to biology like a fish to water, and I soon discovered chemistry. I was an intelligent child. I could read at almost a college level, I could do high school level math, I knew history in a manner that surpassed my teachers. But biology was something different.

“My mother indulged me at first, thinking I'd grow out of my penchant for doing experiments, but I argued. I tested out of multiple grade levels. I missed junior high completely. I did one year of high school before I tested out and got accepted to college. And I stopped doing pageants. They're not easy. It takes weeks of preparation, and they take up all your time when you're doing them. I wanted to study and learn not spend endless hours getting fitted for dresses and practicing my talent—which I didn't really have. I'm a decent singer and dancer, but compared to the other girls, I wasn't ever going to win. I came in fifth once, the highest I ever placed. My mother won four years in a row.

“I was only sixteen and still under my mother's thumb. We had a huge fight about it. So huge, our neighbors called the cops. She ended it when she told me I had never been worth it, and she regretted having me.”

“Have you seen her since?”

“All the time. Neither of us told my father, who was conveniently absent for the fight, like he was absent for everything else. I went to college with a part time job waitressing and came over for dinner every two weeks. My father was oblivious to the tension or the fact that every time I saw my mother, she told me it was a pity nothing bad had happened to me. I'm not sure he ever cared about us. When I married Clint, she told me I deserved the trailer trash I was getting, and he kicked her out of our wedding. Forcibly. He literally picked her up by her dress—her very expensive silk dress I should add—and tossed her out onto the street. Barney made sure she didn't come back in.”

Natasha smothers a laugh. “You weren't angry?”

“I was so relieved I laughed. I felt horrible afterward but—It's terrible to be unwanted by anyone, let alone your own mother. And all because I didn't want to do pageants! I did them for years and I never got anywhere.”

“Is that why you don't wear makeup or fancy clothes?”

“No. I just can't be bothered with makeup most days. I look just fine without it. I take care of my skin. And my clothes are either in a lab, around a government agency where no one cares, or worn out grocery shopping. Sometimes I get something new for going out with Clint, but we mostly stay in.”

“I saw your thigh high boots.”

“Oh, yes, Clint said you snooped around. I bought them on a mission a few years ago when I needed to poke around a shop and didn't want to spend hours there without buying something. I bought two dozen shoes actually. They're mostly in our attic, along with most of my nice dresses. But Clint's fond of the boots. I wear them once in a while to keep him on his toes.”

“Pretty clothes can make you feel like a new person.” 

Bobbi turns to face her, surprised that someone like the Black Widow would have said something so frivolous. Her desire to question the statement fades when she catches sight of Natasha's face, eyes on the kitchen table but face wanting. Bobbi turns back to the window lest Natasha catch sight of her and go back to a bland expression. “Maybe you can come with me sometime,” she says lightly. “I could use some new clothes.”

–

Watching Clint's bruised, sleeping face is something she does far too often. She brushes his hair off his forehead, leaving her hand there for a moment to help him settle when he starts. The hearing aids provided by R&D for missions are small and need to be put in with a needle, so they were left in during his captivity and first few days of recovery. It hadn't been important to take them out when he might die at any second and quick communication with him was key. Now that they're out, he's not eager to put anything back in his ears or she'd soothe him with a sigh of his name.

He's eating solid foods and handling pills and his heart and brain have no signs of lingering issues. Tomorrow, they'll fly back to New York, where Bobbi will take her leave of him again and go chase down ghosts with Natasha. She's already called Barney to let him know what happened. He's used to not hearing from them for weeks at a time and she hadn't wanted to worry him unnecessarily. He was a little upset with her but he got over it soon enough and promised to be in New York waiting for them. He would take care of Clint for a few weeks at least, until Clint was stable enough to move around on his own. 

“It's late,” the doctor tells her in Romanian. “Wouldn't you rather be sleeping?”

“I'm still worried he'll die,” she admits, her Romanian coming out stuttered as she tries to remember how to speak what she knows of it.

“He won't,” the man says. He's tall and gray haired, even though his face looks young underneath his exhaustion. “But I will confess I have no idea how the spies do it. I would have thought you'd avoid relationships altogether.”

“It would be easier,” she admits. “But sometimes someone to come home to is important.”

“I do not doubt that,” he says. “My mother always said so. Your husband will survive, somehow. When I was updating his medical file, I noticed he lived through many impossibilities. Consider him a fighter.”

“I mostly consider him stubborn.”

The doctor laughs. “I think it is much the same in practice. Get some sleep, doctor. The morning will be hard enough.”

–

The morning is hard. Clint can't move on his own, and his fingers don't support any weight. The doctor reassured Clint many times that provided he healed first, there would be no effect on his shooting in the long run. But right now, his fingers and arms are broken completely. “It reminds me of a certain crime lord and my first time tied to a chair,” he says nonchalantly when they're in the air. His voice still sounds weak and hoarse. Natasha flinches, presumably at the words, a reminder of a time she left him to take the torture that was meant for her. Bobbi flinches at the sound of his voice that sounds like a twisted version of how he sounds after a round of vigorous sex.

“Be careful,” Bobbi warns. “Gashi's out there. He won't be happy someone stole his hostage.”

“If he wants to go up against you two, he's free to do so. Pity I won't have a front row seat.”

“How do you know I won't thank him?” Natasha asks tartly.

“I think you'll at least pretend to be loyal for a little while longer.”

Natasha scowls and throws her balled up sweater at him. The fabric is soft enough not to do any damage when it smacks his face. Ordinarily, he'd be able to catch it but between the drugs and the injuries, he can't stop it before it knocks out one of his hearing aids. As he tries to readjust it, Bobbi tries to read Natasha's face and thinks there's something like hurt there.

“Natasha and I are going shopping,” she says.

Clint, having successfully repositioned his hearing at the end of her statement, says, “I can't imagine I heard that right.”

“You did. We need clothes anyway. We'll be traveling for months, and we have to be prepared for every eventuality.”

“Doesn't wardrobe give us most of it?” Natasha asks.

“We can get it from them if you want. But I prefer buying my own clothes. They're more comfortable than hastily tailored clothes. I learned a long time ago they rarely have anything in my proportions. Besides, it'll take weeks. Do you want to wear borrowed clothes the entire time?”

Natasha shrugs. “I've done worse things,” she says, “but I see your point.”

“What will I be doing?”

“Sleeping,” Natasha says. “Unless you want to be put in a wheelchair and drug out with us.”

“Barney's coming to take care of you,” Bobbi says. “But you'll need all the rest you can get.”

“Fine. Fill me in?” he asks.

“There's so little to go on,” Natasha says. “Fury is trying to find out who altered the file but there's no way to trace it. They did recover the original file sometime last night, and until further notice, Fury, McKay, and whoever Alexander Pierce is are the only ones to have access to all SHIELD files. They'll release them as needed for missions to those working them.”

“That's not going to work in the long run.”

“They're working on it. Whoever it was didn't leave a trail.”

“They're outsourcing it to the Finnish base,” Bobbi adds. “Less chance of a traitor there, and they're the ones who create most of our programs.”

“I don't suppose I can do anything,” Clint says.

“If we don't find anything, Fury might use you as bait,” Natasha says. “But you'll have to be recovered. If there's a traitor at SHIELD, your presence might flush them out. When you're up to it, be on base. I'm sure you can find something to do.”

“Learn another language, maybe,” Bobbi murmurs. 

“Great suggestion, doll. I'm thinking Bengali.”

–

She and Natasha start at an abandoned army base in Mississippi. As SHIELD agents, they're supposed to be treated as high ranking officers, but they're also women and there's a fair bit of condescension. Natasha humiliates the officer who's supposed to escort them around the base five minutes into their meeting, and he abandons them for the duration of their trip. Bobbi reports him to his general and to Fury, and they get assigned a young colonel named Luisa, who takes them around base and gives them all the answers they could possibly need as to why the base in now defunct. An attack on the base led to water lines being poisoned, bombs that weren't there the day before blowing up at random intervals, and enlisted personnel going missing. 

While there, Bobbi also manages to relearn her hated Southern accent without meaning to. It's one thing when she's angry, but it's another to have it come out of her mouth every time she speaks. Natasha's lips always twitch in amusement when she starts talking, which is a welcome change from her constant muttering about Fury not letting them talk to Petrovich. Clint teases her when she calls him nightly to make sure he's okay, and his comments are always ripe with innuendo. 

They move onto Quebec, where DeBois sent a handful of the children kidnapped. They talk to police and pimps with no new information. From there they move off continent, doing more of the same. Some of the places were the sources of missions never completed, some of them were known locations of DeBois' criminal activities, and some of them were helpfully given to them by a variety of sources as something they might want to check out. They took three people off SHIELD's wanted list by week four, but as far as Gashi went, they learned nothing. 

It's still an interesting mission. Bobbi and Natasha spar each night, and they both have a few tricks to teach each other. They do their best not to hurt each other too much. It's easier for Bobbi. Natasha's not breakable like a normal human. On the other hand, Bobbi ends up with multiple bruises and a sprained wrist. She has to look up how to cover up bruises with makeup. Natasha apologizes, and it sounds genuine. Bobbi would have liked to talk to Natasha before or after these sessions, but Natasha doesn't seem eager to have any sort of conversation not related to the mission.

On week five, a former contact of Natasha tells them the Red Guardian has also searched for Gashi. He tells them this with a significant look that has Bobbi confused until she catches sight of Natasha's cheeks, pink with anger.

“Who's the Red Guardian?” Bobbi asks when they're back in their hotel.

“He's an asshole,” Natasha snarls, ripping open the door to the bathroom with such force the knob breaks off. She glances at it for a beat then tosses it aside.

“Is he KGB?” Bobbi asks. “Or Red Room?”

“KGB. I'm going to take a shower. See if room service has anything decent.”

Bobbi orders pierogi and knedle and wonders if their proximity to Russia will cause problems for Natasha. Her musing is cut short by a phone call from Clint; there isn't any need for lack of contact when she's not undercover. 

“Do you know who the Red Guardian is?” she asks him.

“Natasha's husband?”

“She's married?”

“She tried to slit his throat. During our getting-to-know-you game, she told me she tried to kill him.”

“He's been sniffing around Gashi too, according to her contact.”

“That's not going to be good.”

“Do you know anything else?”

“Not really. Other than he lied to her.”

“Men always lie to women.”

“I haven't lied to you.”

Bobbi doesn't bring up the suicide attempt. She also doesn't bring up the three weeks she wrestled with the idea that if he kept something that big away from her with ease, then there's a hundred other things he could be hiding. But Clint has worked on their marriage since the day she walked out and told him he had a week to decide if he was going figure out his problems or have her file for divorce. So she decided to believe his rationale that he didn't want to say it out loud. “Most men lie. All my exes did.”

“I think we figured out a long time your exes were assholes.”

“True. But that's not the point. She said the Red Guardian is KGB. What else do we know about him?”

“His real name is Alexei Shostakov. There's nothing else about him in our files. Natasha said he was the answer to Captain America, so he's probably from a time before computers.”

“If he's not in our files, he's probably either very good or stays in Russia.”

“I think he stays in Russia. He wears a red bodysuit like Captain America's. It's not subtle. He's a target from a million miles away. And the KGB is effectively gone. He's answering to the government probably.”

Someone knocks. She goes out, thanks the man for the food cart in stilted Moldovan, and brings it in. “You really got to learn some Eastern European languages, doll,” Clint says, amused. 

“I'm usually sent to western Europe or South America. Do you know anything else or should I harass you about your health?”

“Neither. My health is fine. Barney wrestled me back into bed twice today.”

“Don't do anything stupid.”

Clint mutters something that sounds like “well that's all I'm good for apparently.”

“You're not stupid. Are you visiting SHIELD?”

“Daily. Fury has Hill and I scanning pre-computer era reports. I've read them all out of boredom. They're not that interesting. And Peggy Carter was terrifying.”

“You make it sound like you didn't have a crush on her that time you met her.”

“Did I have a crush? She wasn't a leggy blonde.”

“That's never stopped you.”

“Am I that fickle?”

“No, you're an emotional masochistic. You fall for women who are capable of, and sometimes willing to, completely destroy you.”

He laughs. “It's worked out pretty well for me so far, doc.”

–

Two days later, the warning about the Red Guardian is repeated and Bobbi corners Natasha in the bathroom to get her to talk. “This isn't a fun surprise,” Natasha says when Bobbi enters the bathroom and sits on the counter while Natasha showers. The water pressure is so weak it's easy to talk over it. “Unless you were planning on joining me,” she adds. “It's been a while since I slept with a woman.”

“I know you don't want to talk about your husband,” Bobbi says, “but if we run into him, I'd really like to know what I'm against.”

There's a full minute of silence. Behind the thin curtain, Bobbi can see Natasha's unmoving silhouette. Then she starts moving and finally says, “Hand to hand combat is his specialty. He's a gifted athlete and in prime shape, or at least he was. His belt contains discs he can throw. And he was a pilot. Once he gets in a plane, he's unmatchable.”

“Will he talk to us?”

“No.”

“Will you try to kill him?”

“Probably.”

“Will you talk to me about him?”

“Why?”

“Because I care about you. And because you keep freezing up. We can do it just like this. It's easier when you're not face to face with someone.”

The silence clocks in at three minutes. Bobbi's patient though, and Natasha's form sinks to the floor and wraps her arms around her knees. “I met him in a bookstore,” she starts blandly. “He said he was looking for a book for his sister, something about ballet. She wasn't any good at it, but she loved it. I told him I was ballerina. I wasn't, not really. I thought I was, but it was just a Red Room memory. I can do ballet perfectly, you know. But I never studied it. But I could do it, so I told him I could. And I recommended a book, the complete history of the Bolshoi. He took me out to dinner that night. And he talked about everything I wanted to see—operas, ballets, plays, works of art. He talked about all the places I wanted to see and he told me he was in the army, which is why he was so well traveled. I believed him, because I was an idiot. I couldn't see how he was in the KGB. I knew everyone.

“He was so animated when he talked. I would have challenged anyone not to fall in love with him. We married after only a few months. I started hating him but I don't know when. Then he died, supposedly. I grieved for about two days. It didn't have anything to do with my job. I woke up on day three and wondered why I didn't care and went on like that for three months. Then he came back. He hadn't gone down with his plane. He went underground. At the beginning, he promised me we'd run away to somewhere tropical but when he came back, all he could talk about was serving Mother Russia.”

“An indoctrination course?”

“I don't think so. He didn't need to be indoctrinated. He believed with every fiber of his being.”

“And you tried to kill him?”

“I was fleeing the KGB. I thought—I already hated him by then but I thought maybe he would come with me. He raised the alarm. I needed to get out before the troops came.”

“Okay,” Bobbi says. “I'll leave you alone now.”

–

“Tell me about falling in love with Clint,” Natasha says one night. They're in Ukraine, even closer to Russia now, and no matter how many layers they wrapped in, the biting wind still slices through. Natasha started off the night looking at home, but now she looks as miserable and frozen as Bobbi feels. In about thirty minutes, they'll know if the Red Guardian is the one slipping in and out of the abandoned house on the other side of the street, and they'll both be grateful when the time comes.

Bobbi thinks about the question. The night she realized she was in love with Clint, they were in the middle of a gunfight where they didn't have guns. Or ammo. Clint was out of arrows, they were both out of knives, and hand to hand wasn't going to work when the others would be content to shoot. They fled down the stairs, all twenty of them, burst out of the doors, and paused in the street to catch their breaths. The lighting made Clint look like a Chiaroscuro painting, and she thought, _God I love him._ The realization was tempered by remembering she was supposed to be arresting him. Then the light next to Clint was shot out, and she couldn't think about it anymore. 

She remembers hitting the floor of his hotel room. It was a nicer one than his usual—he was making more money then, and he already knew she was in town. They slumped against the door. Later, she realized they had run something like seven miles. She was wearing heels that night, and once he secured the hotel room and she double checked that they weren't follow, he told her her feet were bleeding. 

Clint cleaned her feet off and bandaged them, and the next thing she remembers is grabbing Clint and dragging him into bed with her. It was only the second time they had sex, and there was an eight month break between them. She told him she loved him afterward, and he told her he wasn't sure he knew what love was to know if he was in love too. She appreciated the honesty. She would have hated him if he told her something that didn't turn out to be true.

In the morning, he brought her coffee and pastries, and she swallowed down any fear she had over another relationship. Being single was always fine with her. Better than fine, even. She hadn't dreamed of getting married as a child. Being single meant not having to answer to anyone about anything. She had her friends, and that was plenty. But she did love him, she thought then, and if he ended up hating her like everyone else, well, that would just make it easier to do her job.

She tells this to Natasha, who says, “You should have done your job anyway.”

Bobbi thinks his sweet, hesitant smile and the way he could always make her feel better no matter what happened and she wants to say, _I would have challenged anyone not to fall in love with him_ , but thinks that's unnecessarily inflammatory. “It all worked out in the end.”

“Do you ever regret it?”

“Why would I? Clint's a good husband. I love him.”

“And he's lied to you.”

“Why are you stuck on that?”

“I'm curious.”

“Ask him, Natasha. It's not my secret to tell.”

“Aren't you upset?”

“Of course I'm upset. That doesn't mean anything. I have no reason not to trust Clint. I understand why he didn't tell me. How about you tell me something?”

“Tell you what?”

“I don't know.”

“I told Clint I always wanted to go to the cinema without it having to be for a mission. I would be nice to sit through a film and not have to do anything. Not an action film, though. Something artsy maybe. Or a drama.”

“Just the movie or the full experience?”

“There's an experience?”

“I don't know. Clint seemed to think there was, but then he'd never been a movie theater before. I've been so many times, it feels routine.”

“What does Clint's experience entail?”

“Popcorn, soda, making out in the back of the theater. You could find a date.”

Natasha snorts. “I think I'll forgo all of that. I just want to see a movie.”

“Personally, I think theaters are overrated. It's much more comfortable seeing a movie in your own place.”

“Probably.”

A shadow steps out of the house. They both perk up and watch the shadow move off the porch. Natasha picks up the binoculars. “It's not Alexei,” she says quietly. “I don't recognize him.”

Bobbi takes the binoculars, looks through them, and does a double take. “It's Roman Steiner. We took him down last year while you were prisoner.”

–

“Am I supposed to believe it was a goddamn glitch? A relevant file was altered and a dangerous prisoner was released from custody and you're telling me there's a glitch in our system?”

To say that Fury was upset at the news was an understatement. He called Bobbi and Natasha back immediately, tasked half the agency with figuring it out, and ignored every stupid reason given to him. A glitch made no sense. Only one prisoner was released, only one file was altered, and they appeared to be linked. 

Fury slams the button to end the video chat and turns back to where Hill, Bobbi, Natasha, and Clint are sitting. “What the hell is going on, Romanoff?”

Natasha shrugs. “I've never heard of him,” she says.

“We're either looking at a genuine glitch—and I agree with you, sir, it sounds suspect,” Hill adds blandly at his glower, “or we're looking at a traitor. No one's found anything to suggest SHIELD was hacked from outside. There's been some minor indications of being hacked from inside.”

Fury throws a paperweight at the wall. “Okay,” he says, sounding much more calm than he looks, “here's what we're going to do. I'll send out a team to collect Steiner. You ladies—get Barton back on his feet. Let's shoot for after the new year. Then, Barton, you're bait.”


	5. Part Five: Natasha

WINTER 2002

Thankfully, Alexei is no where to be found when they get to Russia. 

Natasha dyed her a deep chestnut brown tinged with red spots. It was supposed to be black, but she did it with a box from the grocery store in three tries—a professional could have gotten a better result. She also has taken to straightening it with a ten dollar iron that couldn't tame her curls. The result is a crimped almost eighties style, so she rolled with it and put plenty of hairspray in when she got ready. She bought a five dollar eyeshadow palette and smeared her eyes with lots of blue and put on a bright frosty lipstick. She looks nothing like herself, and that's exactly what they want. Three days before they left, she learned that she was being treated as a war criminal in Russia. Being easily recognizable will make it a lot easier to catch her.

Not having this problem, Clint and Bobbi look much like their usual selves, except for the fact that they've dyed their hair lighter. Clint looks more like he did when they first met before his hair started going darker, and Bobbi has hers in a platinum blonde shade that does nothing to soften her harsh features but makes her look even more striking. Natasha learned during sparring sessions how distracting it was to pay too much attention to the way Bobbi's cheekbones angled, so she decidedly looks away and focuses on the brightly colored domes of Pokrovsky Cathedral instead.

Using Clint as bait was a good theory, but in practice, the mission was a bit more complicated. For starters, Alexei was hanging around in every country they visited, like he was waiting for them. To test this theory, Clint flat out walked up to him and initiated a conversation, before he dyed his hair. Alexei didn't rise to the bait. When Natasha flitted by, Alexei perked up and tried to follow her, but she swerved into an alleyway and took off in a waiting cab back to the hotel.

Except Russia. He isn't in Russia.

Today, they had time to spare before a meeting of former KGB chums and their various contacts. While they were in Russia anyway, Fury figured they could spy on the meeting. Natasha hopes they'll be able to take someone down because all this walking around Eastern Europe and making Clint a target is boring. She's desperate to fight someone for real, not the controlled sparring sessions between her and a still recovering Clint, not the distracting, arousing sessions between her and Bobbi. She looks instead at the scenery, which isn't much, considering it's winter and everything is coated in white. 

It doesn't feel like home anymore, Natasha muses. Objectively, it looks like what she dreams of, but now that she's here, it feels like a twisted version of home. She remembers, faintly, killing a man on the rooftop of the Cathedral after a bone breaking encounter. She remembers stalking her prey through back alleys and committing atrocious crimes in the name of Mother Russia. She supposes she shouldn't hold it against the land—Mother Russia didn't ask her to do anything for her. But she can't view it kindly, and it hurts more than she thought she would. She realizes she liked to dream of coming back to Russia and making some semblance of a home here, but with every street they pass, a long buried, or erased, memory floats to the surface.

Clint's gloved fingers touch her wrist lightly. When she turns to him, his face is carefully blank, but she can read worry in the barely crinkled corners of his eyes. She wonders what's on her face and why she loses control of her own body so easily nowadays.

She moves her wrist away. He tucks his hand back into his pocket without saying anything, and he turns his attentions back to his wife. Bobbi, for her part, looks unaware of Natasha's upset and Clint's concern. Natasha knows better. Not having a past together means Bobbi is more likely to let Natasha be when she's upset but being such a prolific spy meant she didn't miss it. Clint is too sentimental to leave things alone.

“Are we planning to eat first or…? Are we visiting Saint Basil's?” Bobbi asks.

“I killed a man on the rooftop,” Natasha shares. When Bobbi glances at the domes, clearly wondering how that worked, she adds, “It was a long chase. I killed him on the red dome so the blood was easier to hide. I had to take his body with me. It wasn't fun to haul him down again.” The memory surfaces a little more clearly—a young man with dark eyes and dark hair, who was a good enough person to know Mother Russia was doing people wrong. He was bigger than she was, and he tried to appeal to her humanity, but it had been so long since she possessed any. She trembles at the memory, and out of the corner of her eye, she sees Clint's hand twitch for her again, but he stops it.

“Is that a no?” Bobbi asks.

“If you want to,” Natasha says. “But I'd rather not.”

“Is there anything you want to do?”

“Not really,” she says, saddened to find herself wanting to leave again. “I just want to go back to the hotel.”

Clint shrugs his acquiescence. Bobbi says, “I'll be happy to be in heat.” So back to the hotel it is, although Natasha really wants to be in New York. The snow will be more gray slush and she'll be in an area where she's monitored every second, but there's a million things to do. Natasha recently discovered the Film Forum and Angelika's Film Center. During Christmas week, she frequented them, having turned down an invitation to spend the week at Clint and Bobbi's. She showed up for New Year's with a bottle of expensive champagne instead, having felt the need to take them up on at least one of their invitations. Hill had also come, bearing a less expensive sparkling white wine that wasn't actually from the Champagne region in France thus couldn't be called champagne. But Natasha had been the only one to care about these things. They did humor her and call it sparkling wine, though Clint did so with a tone that either was mocking or suggested she was being pretentious about the whole thing. She couldn't tell exactly. It seemed to vacillate. 

Once they're back at the hotel, Natasha curses SHIELD's cheapness as she has every day this week and lays down in her bed. They're sharing a room. Three people in a room isn't necessarily bad, but she learned quickly that Clint and Bobbi were prone to being exceptionally amorous. She imagines they haven't managed much of anything with Clint in such a bad state lately, and at least they aren't distracted the slightest from the mission. But it's still horrible to hear them. It doesn't help how attracted she is to them both. Clint is all solid muscle and big hands. When they spar, Natasha has to remind herself not to get distracted if he pins her down. Bobbi is an interesting contradiction of hardness and softness—her breasts are achingly soft, the muscles in her arms and thighs are hard especially when in use, her skin is like fine velvet, and her hair, so much longer than Natasha previous thought, puddles and slips like liquid gold even though it feels so coarse. 

She peeks over her shoulder to the other bed just in time to see Bobbi peel off her sweater. Clint is also watching his wife as her lithe body arches and juts her breasts out. She's not as buxom as Natasha, but she's hardly small. Bobbi tosses the sweater onto the chair, silently and falsely admonishes Clint for his leer, and leans over to kiss him. Natasha traces the lines of her form with interest. She hasn't touched a woman in so long and the craving lingers in her soul. She wants to relearn how it feels to be pressed breast to breast with another woman.

She turns back around before they see her. She wouldn't be breast to breast with Bobbi anyway—there's a seven inch height difference. 

–

Crashing the meeting is easy. Natasha knows all the men involved, and most of them are too old to properly do anything anymore. Their hearing is on par with Clint's, they take forever to use the bathroom, and they forget to lock doors. Even without all the precautions they set up earlier, it takes as much effort as breathing to get in. They're trying to make Russia great again, apparently, which has Clint snorting quietly. Natasha makes note of their names and updates the mission file in their experimental tablet. Bobbi records the conversation, but it's not particularly useful. Other than speaking of her estranged husband a couple of times, the conversation is mostly whining and complaining about getting old. It's only been thirteen or so years, Natasha thinks. Surely they can't be that old?

There's no need for the three of them to linger other than boredom. They stay huddled together in a little alcove off the side of the meeting place, listening to a bunch of men in their fifties at the most whine and complain.

“Why are they in such bad shape?” Bobbi asks. “They don't look that old.”

Natasha shrugs. She wonders the same thing. “They were the ones who got into car chases and picked fights they couldn't possibly win. They probably took a lot of hits and damaged themselves.”

“Where they any use to Mother Russia?”

Natasha looks back over at them. From the alcove, she really can't see much of them. She took note of their names on the way in. Here, all she can see is balding heads and beer guts and ill fitting suits, men past their prime still acting like they were in it. But she recites their names to herself and says, “No. I can't think of anything they did to be useful.”

“Would they have access to the Red Guardian?”

“Personal access, no. But they might have worked with him. If I remember correctly, they were strictly backup. All brawn, no brains.”

Bobbi glances over at them. Their conversation lends credence to the no brain idea—they're now talking about killing off prominent Russian politicians in the name of the Soviet. “Why do they enjoy the Soviet so much?” Bobbi asks. “They could have still served Russia post breakup.”

Natasha shrugs again. “I'm not sure. I think they wanted to make Russia an empire like Britain was in the eighteen hundreds.”

“Didn't Russia have an empire?” Clint asks. He looks like he's desperately bored. If they were further away, he would probably be juggling his knife.

“Not since the Great War,” Natasha says. “Before even I was born. Or maybe World War II. I remember things being unstable. I think the idea in my branch of the KGB was to spread communism as far and wide as they could. I'm not sure what countries they were planning to take over. When I joined, the Soviet was showing signs of collapsing on itself, and we tried to halt that. Russia has been plagued by shifting powers for a century now. We hoped to stabilize and expand.”

One of the men mentions her by name. It's been almost a year since she's heard herself referred to as Natalia, but the second it registers, she jumps. Clint puts a restraining hand on her arm. “They don't know you're here,” Bobbi says quietly. “They think you're their only hope.”

Natasha snorts, takes a deep breath to calm her racing heart, and shakes Clint's hand off. “Don't they know I betrayed them?” she asks, but her question is answered by the men right after—Alexei has been boasting he will bring her back into the fold.

“How does he plan to do that?”

“The Red Room,” Bobbi says. “According to Petrovich, the equipment is still in place. It might still work. Presumably the Red Guardian could find someone to work it if he can't.”

Natasha's insides go as cold as her fingers and nose. She doesn't register the meeting ending until Clint presses two fingers to the base of her spine and gently shifts her. She doesn't like the sudden gentleness, so she shoves his arm away with more force than necessary. When he winces, she remembers up until two weeks ago his arm was in a cast. She mutters a vague apology in Russian. 

“What did we learn?” she asks just to give herself something to do as the file out after a few minutes. 

“Russians don't have a long life,” Clint says. “I can blame a bomb and some assholes for not being able to hear. What do they have?”

“They probably bare knuckle box,” Natasha says. “You're lucky that bomb didn't kill you. And you're not funny.”

“We didn't learn anything other than your husband wants to brainwash you.”

They take down their equipment in silence and make for the hotel. When they're back, Natasha finally says, “Do you think he could do it?”

Clint snorts. “I don't think you'll let him do it.”

Bobbi cuts him a look that says _not helping_. “We can take down Alexei, if you want. We have permission to do that. I doubt anyone else we saw tonight would be of much use. Most of the KGB is dead or imprisoned.”

“Between SHIELD and the CIA, there's no major players left,” Natasha agrees. “These guys did the grunt work. Only Alexei is left, and he's been experimented on too.”

“Should we take him down?”

“It would be wise, but we'll deal with Gashi first.”

–

They travel through Russia for a few more days. Nothing happens so they head towards   
Belarus. Nothing happens there either so they work their way across the former Soviet states again—Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia. In Turkmenistan they observe Alexei from a distance. When Natasha trembled in some horrible mix of terror and hurt and anger, Clint took her hand in his without bothering to look at her. It made it easier to cling onto his hand. When she let go as Alexei left, she realized she'd been clutching painfully tight. Clint said nothing though, he just stretched his hand out and kissed Bobbi on the nose with a part teasing, part smitten grin when a snowflake fell there.

They learn nothing new from Alexei, unfortunately. He's searching for Gashi too, and he seems to be having as much luck as they are.

In Uzbekistan they find him again. Clint literally walks into him in the streets, and Bobbi quickly shifts herself to hide Natasha's face. Clint apologizes in stumbling Uzbek that Natasha isn't sure is wholly fake. Alexei doesn't seem to recognize him as the same man from before. He accepts the apology with a muttered Russian curse and leaves. His eyes pass over her—she has never been blonde before. Even the Red Room couldn't make her dye her hair. He glances at her, dismisses her as a possibility, and leaves.

Clint takes off his outer two jackets, switches them, and follows. 

“Let's get something to eat,” Natasha suggests to Bobbi. 

They're settled down on an outside patio table attached to a tea house when Bobbi says, “Steiner again. He knows my face.”

Natasha pulls a tracker from her purse, confirms which man it is, and casually knocks into him on the way to the counter of a store two blocks over. It's not difficult to knock into him. The store has narrow aisles filled to the brim with all sorts of things. Steiner buys pain pills, cough medicine, a bag of rice, and green tea. Natasha also chooses to buy some tea—loose leaf isn't easy to find given how little time she has to explore New York—and lurks around the shop until Steiner has left. When she gets a text from Bobbi confirming the tracker was activated, she buys her tea, some rice and noodles, and a box of sweets. She shoves them all in the oversized purse she's using and heads back.

“What do you think he's doing?” Natasha asks.

“I'm more worried about why he hasn't been captured yet. Fury sent out multiple teams.”

“Did you let him know?”

“I did. He's upset.”

Natasha snorts at the understatement and reaches for her tea. “I still don't know what he did.”

“Steiner was trying to fuse animal and human DNA. When that didn't prove easy, he hacked people up trying to make it work. He used lies of omission to raise funds from respectable organizations. We were alerted to his experiments due to a handful of mutilated bodies showing up around Poland. The people he experimented on were the sort of people no one would miss—the homeless, prostitutes, orphans.”

“What happened to them?”

“Some of them died. I was told Clint killed one of them out of mercy—his brain was eaten away. The rest were either already dead when they got there or needed to be killed because they wouldn't recover. The rest of them are at a base specializing in medicine and science to recover. I'm told most of them are doing well.”

“When they got there? What were you doing?”

“Distracting Steiner. He was very interested in my breasts.”

Natasha nearly says, _So am I_ , but manages to stop herself last second. “That appears to be a common viewpoint among the men of SHIELD too.”

Bobbi scowls. “Most of them can't even be bothered to pay attention to me if I'm not wearing something tight or low cut.”

“Is that why your wardrobe is so boring?”

“I told you why my clothes are boring,” Bobbi says with amusement. “I just don't care. But it does have the added effect of making me too painful to look at according to some.”

“I guess Clint isn't among them.”

“Clint's a big fan of low cut and tight… he's just not stupid enough to ask me to wear it.”

“Would you wear it for him if he asked?”

“Probably. But I appreciate he doesn't.”

“I can't imagine you wearing tiny dresses very often.”

“Usually missions. When I want to shock my mother but she rarely visits and I never go back. Sometimes when I want to shut Clint up. He loses the ability to talk when I'm in tiny dresses. For a while at least.”

Natasha refills her teacup. They serve it without sugar or cream here, which she likes. Bobbi only winces every fifth sip at it.

“Are you the kind to wear tiny dresses?” Bobbi asks.

Natasha hums in consideration. “I was,” she says. “I look amazing, and it distracts men.”

“On things that aren't missions?”

“I don't think I've ever worn a tiny dress outside a mission,” she says with some surprise. She idly swills her tea around while she thinks back. She can't remember. “I've always been the sexy one,” she says slowly. “I guess when it was just me I didn't need to be it.” She looks down at her clothes. Mission clothes, she thinks, but not the sort the Red Room gave her. These are bland and unmemorable, even with her bright makeup. Dark faded jeans, a sweater that's intact but faded, worn out boots, a couple of thick fleece jackets that are more practical than attractive. Bobbi and Clint wear similar things. Clint's look like they're from his own closet—she thinks she remembers his dark green jacket from their freelance days. The flannel shirttails that stick out from under his jacket are definitely his, and she's fairly certain Bobbi has stolen one of her husband's shirts.

“No one needs to be sexy,” Bobbi says.

“Tell that to your mother,” Natasha says.

“ _Pretty_ ,” Bobbi says, “never sexy. Nothing so vulgar.”

“You are pretty, though. What did she want?”

“Girly. Pink, purple, pastels, shimmer. I don't know. I just wasn't it. I didn't care. I still don't care. I can do makeup. I can shop for pretty dresses. I can, and do, get dressed up from time to time. But it doesn't matter much to me. I get dressed up for anniversaries and birthdays. Special events. Me spending a day doing paperwork or working in a lab or sitting around the base waiting for something to happen doesn't warrant floral dresses and pumps.”

“Some women like to look pretty. It makes them feel pretty,” Natasha says. She thinks of Vera. Even when they had downtime in the Red Room, Vera always wore dresses and heels, even in the snow. She said it made her feel pretty in a room full of girls who were all pretty. Natasha had loved Vera, but she had to admit compared to some of the other girls, Vera could at best be called interesting. White blonde hair, pale gray eyes, and translucent skin made her almost ghostly to look at.

“I'm not interested in feeling pretty,” Bobbi says. “Most days.”

“I'm not interested in being viewed as attractive at all,” Natasha admits. “But I think that's a pipe dream.” When Bobbi nods, she adds, “You too, Morse. It's a pipe dream for you too.”

“I never dreamed of being unattractive,” she says. “I just didn't want it to be important.”

“Wouldn't that be nice?”

Bobbi's phone beeps. “Clint's heading back,” she says when she reads the text. “He says Alexei is meeting up with Gashi tonight.”

“To kill him?”

“He didn't say.”

Natasha refills her teacup again. Bobbi's still on her first cup which has to be cold by now. She offers to top it up, but Bobbi cringes. Natasha thinks about telling her that tea is worse cold, but before she can Bobbi hides her face behind her hair and says, “Steiner again. He must be doing his shopping.”

Steiner is an older man with salt and pepper hair. Prior to his imprisonment, he possessed a good figure and a healthy face, but now he's dropped a fair bit of weight and has a sunken appearance to his cheeks. He also looks too pale with red rimmed eyes, but that could be what he was buying the medicine for. But he's still handsome enough to be a problem. A little cough medicine, some food, and some sleep and he would be even more handsome. There were a lot of rice and noodle based dishes in Uzbekistan. It probably won't take him long to gain weight if he's not doing backbreaking labor. 

Natasha tosses some money down on the table, drains her cup, and says, “Let's follow.”

He enters a place that sold formal clothes. Natasha and Bobbi veer into the women's side so they aren't as conspicuous. While Bobbi rifles through the racks, Natasha follows with one eye on Steiner as he debates between two suits. “What would a scientist need a suit for?” Natasha asks.

“Fundraisers, professional events,” Bobbi says. “Academic lectures, interviews. Either he's sharing his work in a professional capacity or he's schmoozing.”

“He has a sponsor here or he's looking for one. Can you think of anyone here who would?”

“No. The former Soviet territories aren't usually in SHIELD's files. There was a focus on what the Soviet was doing in other countries during the Cold War for one. And it's hard to get agents here. In the countries where we have bases, we have full diplomatic immunity within the parameters of our mission. We have a base in Kazakhstan that sends us information about the former Soviet states, but it's not much. They aren't in a place where they can easily come across underworld information.”

“Can you check the files again?”

“Of course, but it might be better to ask around. If you still have contacts, make use of them. We have the Red Guardian, Gashi, and Steiner here. I don't feel like it's a coincidence.”

“We should buy something,” Natasha says. “The sales lady is eying us.” She looks around her. The racks are filled with all sorts of gowns, and the rainbow of colors is disconcerting. Bobbi pulls out three dresses she's been coming back to—a slinky glittery silver gown with a high slit on the thigh and a plunging neckline, a silky red-orange gown with a jabot collar that puddles like silk, and a cyan blue dress with a fluttery skirt and gold threading around the Queen Anne collar and shoulders. “I see you were actually looking,” Natasha says.

“I could use some more formal dresses,” Bobbi tells her. “I go to science or charity fundraisers sometimes. Get something for yourself. What do you want?”

Natasha shrugs but even as she does so, she thinks back to the sixties, when she saw a little yellow dress with delicate pink flowers on the skirt. It wasn't and still isn't her type of dress and it would probably clash with her hair. But she wanted it then and she still does some days, if only because it would fulfill a wish. She eyes the racks and finds something similar to what she wants. It's a more subdued yellow, the pink flowers have little green stems, and it's a strapless dress, not the pretty bell sleeves she dreamed of, but she goes straight for it. She also finds a Grecian style purple dress and a bronze sequined dress with a full skirt. With all her childhood dreams foolishly fulfilled, they buy them and leave. 

Steiner comes out with a pinstriped suit at the same moment Clint rejoins them. He eyes Steiner for a moment then turns to them, “It looks like Shostakov and Gashi are working together. Do you think Steiner's involved?”

“It would make sense.”

–

SHIELD files offer nothing for scientists who might support Steiner, but Bobbi manages to charm a man at the hotel restaurant into telling her that a local university's science department rented out a hotel ballroom. He was irritated that his interview with the head of the department would be delayed another day for the party, which was happening tonight at a hotel downtown. Bobbi pulls strings with a contact and a scientist she used to know whose name is mentioned to get herself invited. She wears her brand new red-orange dress. While she tries to wrestle her hair into a neat bun, Natasha rustles up some jewelry.

Bobbi goes alone. Clint and Natasha set up surveillance on the rooftop of the building next door. The building look abandoned, and the various things set on the rooftop help shield them from the wind. Natasha is used to the cold, but it's never wise to sit outside for long periods in the middle of winter.

“Do you think it would be better if we were all inside?” Natasha asks.

“I'd be able to feel my fingers,” Clint says without looking up from the front door. “But I'd have to pretend I know what allomerism is.”

“What is it?” She asks, not sure if he actually doesn't know or if he's doing his usual “play dumb” routine.

“I thought the Red Room taught you everything.”

She sticks her tongue out at him while he watches Bobbi quickly enter the hotel with her friend. Natasha imagines it's quick because the dress is pretty and silky, not warm or thick. “Do you know him?”

“Doctor Leon Michaels,” he says. “He walks a thin line. Some of his experiments have been condemned as unethical.”

“How does Bobbi know him?”

“He was fired from her college's chemistry department while she was there.”

“Unethical experiments?”

“I guess. Bobbi never said. He has a habit of finding funding from dubious sources, so she ran into him a couple times. He's been good about keeping her cover. If there's anything too dangerous going about, he lets her know.”

“But he didn't know about Steiner?”

“Steiner wasn't being honest about what he was doing. Only his assistants knew.”

“Didn't anyone want to know where their money was going?”

“Experiments can take forever to get results. I guess they didn't ask.”

“Science wasn't very advanced in the forties,” she says. “The Red Room didn't teach us much. There were still people in the country that believed in leeching.”

He turns his head towards her a little.

“Bloodletting,” she clarifies. “Rural areas could be very behind.”

Clint snorts.

–

“Your wife has a gaggle of admirers.”

“She usually does.”

Natasha rubs her hands together but the friction doesn't warm her up much. “Is that daunting?”

“I didn't know when I met her. Do you want something to eat?”

“Are you changing the subject?”

“No. We've been here for two hours.”

“Has it been that long? Sure. What do we have?”

“Dried melon, cheese and ham sandwiches, and beef jerky.”

“I'll take a sandwich and some melon.” It's her turn to watch the party. The guests are all here and Bobbi is working her way around the room, loosening men's tongues with a bright smile and flirtatious eyes. She has even managed to convince Steiner she was simply frightened the night she woke up chained to a chair, and he seemed to buy it. Listening to that conversation over the comms was the most interesting part of the night. Doctor Michaels laughed for three minutes straight once Steiner left. Natasha just wondered how he rationalized her getting out of the chains Clint mentioned. “You didn't answer me.”

“About what?”

“Bobbi's admirers.”

“They don't seem to like her very much.”

Natasha waits for Steiner to cross the room to greet a man she thinks she remembers as KGB. She presses her comm and tells Bobbi, “I think Steiner's talking to a former KGB agent but don't take my word for it. I don't remember for certain.” She takes an image and waits for the SHIELD database to look. Nothing. “So,” she says, “why don't they like her? She's pretty popular right now.”

It's an understatement. Bobbi didn't go as a scientist but as Alexandria, only child to rich religious parents who made money off the church and various religiously moral but illegal enterprises. Not to mention she's the only woman under the age of fifty in the room. She swirls around the room easily. Her lack of focus on Steiner makes it easier to slip another tracker and a microphone on him. Hill at the Kazakhstan base is listening in.

“She makes them feel inadequate,” Clint says as he pours her a glass of something that tastes like warm syrup. “She's smarter, tougher, and stronger, and she's not interested in protecting anyone's ego.”

Natasha nods in understanding. She's made a few men feel like that before, but she didn't have much opportunity for normal dating.

–

“Your turn again,” Natasha says with a relieved groan. She stands, waits for Clint to settle in her place, and goes to pace around the rooftop. Her back is stiff, they're out of food, and it's coming on one in the morning. She stretches, but her shoulders are still sore from maintaining her position without moving so she could see through the scope. She has no idea how Clint does it without seeming like he's in pain. 

She pours herself another glass of syrupy drink. It tastes like apple, she decides, but it's far too sweet. She downs the glass and pours another one for Clint. She rifles through their supplies bag for something else, but all that's left is water that's freezing up on the bottom. She sighs to herself. “How long do scientists usually talk?”

“A while,” Clint says. “It's a party. We leave when Steiner does.”

“Does he look like he's leaving anytime soon?”

“Maybe if that brunette promises to take off her dress.”

“Do you think we can pay her?”

“I don't think facilitating prostitution is in our mission. And Fury will dock it from our wages.”

“I don't care.” Very aware that she was bordering on petulant, she moderated her tone. “I was hoping something would happen. Something other than your wife messing with men, as entertaining as that is.”

“Stakeouts aren't usually a problem for you.”

“Because nothing's happening! And are we talking about the brunette in green?”

“Yeah.”

“She won't ever sleep with him.”

“A guy can dream.”

–

At two, Natasha finds she can walk around the rooftop safely with her eyes closed. While doing this, she asks, “What if we shoot a bullet in the middle of the crowd?”

“It's wrapping down.” The side of his face shows his mouth quirked up with amusement.

“Are you sure?”

“Is there something more to this or are you just really bored?”

“I don't have any bad memories for this,” she says honestly. “I just want something to happen. I never wait for so long without something happening. Unless I'm the one making something happen.”

“It's almost over,” Clint says.

All Bobbi was trying to do was figure out who would be most likely to support Steiner's cause. Natasha thinks that surely shouldn't have taken the whole night, but it was necessary. She knows this. She also knows that the only reason she and Clint are here because they can't get into Alexei and Gashi's meeting spot. It's good to be here anyway, in case something goes wrong. But she feels restless anyway. After all, Bobbi usually works alone. She could handle it if something went wrong. But better not to waste time looking for a missing teammate. It's not like Clint would easily leave his wife behind, even if Fury clearly trusts them to put the mission first. 

Natasha goes back to pacing the rooftop, this time with her eyes open.

“Bobbi thinks you're upset over Alexei,” Clint says after she makes three turns around the roof. “She thought it was because we were so close to Russia, but you did okay there.”

“I'm not upset.” She didn't think she was at least, but she's never been one to examine her emotions too much. “I usually would have created chaos at this point though.”

–

At three, they get back to the hotel. Bobbi throws off her heels with more force than necessary, but Natasha doesn't blame her. The shoes were found at the last second and they pinched her toes. Natasha peels off her outer layers while watching Bobbi wriggle out of her dress. When the scar that Natasha gave her years ago is revealed, she flinches. On missions, they have special little patches that cover memorable scars to make it look like smooth skin, but Bobbi had no need to use one tonight, so Natasha can see the full effect of it. The scar has faded to a deep pink, nestled neatly between her breasts, but she can easily tell how deep it was. She remembers the knife digging in. It was an old knife, one she lost a long time ago, but she remembers the curve of it, like a small scythe, razor sharp and perpetually stained with blood.

Natasha turns her head away and keep peeling her clothes off. Her cheeks are chapped from the wind, and she dearly wants a hot shower. She focuses on thoughts of that instead of the guilt that starts to well when she sees the scar.

She doesn't remember what the fight was over. She and Bobbi weren't after the same person or the same information. They just happened to be in the same place. In retrospect, she should have been surprised that Bobbi recognized her so easily, but she was used to be known. She'd been a spy longer than Bobbi had been alive, after all. She attacked first, she remembers that. Just because she knew Mockingbird's face, knew to be wary. If she'd known Mockingbird was also Clint's wife… she would have been crueler, she thinks sadly. She had thought of Clint as hers for a long time, and the knowledge was hard enough when she first learned it. If she learned it any earlier, before she and Clint's partnership faded away into nothing, she would have been devastated, and her devastation would've translated into some inhuman cruelty.

“I'm going to take a shower,” she says abruptly. “If you don't mind,” she adds, tempering her tone when she realizes how loud she was.

“Of course not,” Bobbi says.

Natasha moves towards the bathroom more quickly than necessary, not that either of them notice. Clint is lounging on their bed, watching Bobbi undo her bra with interest. Natasha hopes they'll be distracted enough for the time being because she has every intention of crying while showering.

She can name all the times she's cried for real in her life—Lucya's death, Vera's death, James being taken away for her, Alexei supposed death, Alexei's betrayal, Ivan coming back into her life, even for a moment. The Red Room girls weren't criers by any stretch of the imagination. But crying feels right at this moment.

She's never been sure why Bobbi has been so nice to her. The scar is still nasty years later, and it's amazing that it didn't kill her. Regardless of Natasha's inconsistent friendship with her husband, she should have been livid. But when Natasha was stuck in a prison cell, she brought her toiletries and food and entertainment. Natasha wouldn't have done the same if their positions were reversed—but then, if their positions were reversed, would she be who she was? She doesn't remember much of her childhood, the memories lost by machines and time, but the impression is an overall happy one. She thinks she was a happy child. She has the vague memory of a family, and she thinks she was the youngest, sheltered from the poverty of war by doting parents and overprotective older siblings. Maybe two of them, a boy and a girl. The girl was the oldest, with red hair less flame-like than Natasha's and more strawberry blonde. She was the cusp of being a teenager, maybe, growing quickly, legs too big for her body, being teased by her younger brother.

Or maybe it was all a dream Natasha made up years ago. She never knows anymore.

When she gets out of the shower, she spends a good fifteen minutes in the bathroom. She reasons that it's to make sure that the water has some time to recover so it'll be warm for Bobbi and Clint but that only works if she ignores the angry red skin around her shoulders. She spent too much time sitting under the spray and crying that she barely showered at all. Grateful her hair isn't likely to tangle if left uncombed just this once, she jerks her clothes onto her damp body, presses a hand towel drenched in cold water to her face for a few minutes, and studies her reflection. Satisfied that the redness of her cheeks and the puffiness of her eyes has been lessened, she finally exits.

She thinks she should feel calmer and more at ease but when she catches sight of Clint and Bobbi laying on their bed, misery curls up in her chest. Shoving it away is impossible, so she just settles onto her bed. “Shower's free,” she says quietly. Only Bobbi hears her and nods. She spoke too quietly for Clint to hear, even with the mission grade hearing aids. No wonder he tends to set microphones at random places.

When they're safely tucked away in the bathroom, Natasha buries her face in her pillow and cries.

–

She wakes up at four in the morning with a scream in her throat.

Without thinking, she lashes out at whatever is gripping her wrists, but her legs are twisted in the sheets. Dimly, she hears Clint's voice, low and soothing, saying something in Russian. She focuses on the sound and it becomes clearer. He's trying to calm her down. It's a good technique too—he's repeating the time and date, their reason of being here, and her name. When she comes too, she tugs her wrists away from his grip and realizes that he must have jerked her awake since her torso is half off the bed. He lets go of her and she falls backwards, hitting the soft pillows. A knock sounds on the door. Bobbi takes his place by Natasha while he goes to answer it since no one wants to sit through Bobbi's attempts at Slavic languages. Natasha notices him tucking a knife up his sleeve as he moves.

It's the hotel concierge. Natasha can't hear the whispered conversation. She lets Bobbi pull her close. Bobbi's hair may slip like liquid gold but it feels coarse against her cheek. She burrows herself deeper, still watching Clint and the concierge out of the corner of her eye. Bobbi strokes her hair gently, and Natasha loses the struggle to keep her eyes open, at least until she hears the door lock snap shut. 

Clint shrugs on one of his sweaters. This, Natasha is fairly certain belongs to the agency's wardrobe as it is bright red and doesn't fit into the rest of his muted closet. When he shrugs his jacket on over it—dark green with brass-like buttons and sewed over holes that is definitely his—both she and Bobbi perk up with confusion. He doesn't even look at them to know, but he says, “There's an all night shop open for tourists and late flights. If I know Natasha, she's not going to sleep tonight. I'll get her some tea and something to do until morning.” He kisses Bobbi on the top of the head, slips on his shoes, and leaves.

Natasha eases away from Bobbi and doesn't examine her urge to stay cradled there. While she waits for heart to stop racing, she takes deep breaths, swallows painfully, and does not think of Alexei's hands pressing her into one of the Red Room's machines. Bobbi hands her a glass of cold water after some indeterminable length of time, and she gulps it down gratefully. “Do you know what's it like to do something and not know what it was? To know that you'll never know what it was you did?”

“Not to your extent,” Bobbi says, refilling the cup.

Halfway through the glass, Natasha registers what Bobbi said. “But you know what it's like?”

Bobbi hums noncommittally and refills the cup again when Natasha holds it out. It's probably rude to ask, and it's even more certainly cruel. Reliving her memories and fears is what made her wake up in the middle of the night screaming, and to ask Bobbi to do the same would be callous.

“You can ask,” Bobbi says, “if you want to know.”

“I'm trying not to be as callous these days.”

“How are you doing with that?”

“I only made seven junior agents cry lately.”

“Only seven? Such restraint.”

“You're laughing at me.”

“I don't think you and I are meant to be viewed as anything but heartless.”

“Clint did tell me about your tendency to make men feel useless.”

“Only when they are useless.”

Natasha drinks another glass. “Will you tell me?”

For a moment, it looks as though Bobbi is going to take a leaf out of her husband's book and pretend to misunderstand and make a joke. But her half smile drops and she nods decisively once. “It was a mission,” she says. “The devil's lair, Fury called it. We needed to find out the source of a string of murders across Italy and Spain. It looked to us as if they'd swallowed chemicals. I traced it back to a man residing in Portugal as a club owner. I took a job there as a waitress.” She pauses, her eyes looking very far away from here and now. “It wasn't a respectable kind of club,” she adds quietly. Natasha nods her understanding at the implication. “Fury called it the devil's lair when I told him the name of the club. It was a site of constant illegal practices. But—it was my job. It wasn't so bad. The uniform was missing a lot of fabric but I didn't have to sleep with anyone. 

“I guess the devil took an interest in me. He didn't know I was a spy. He just—he was always staring at my ass when I was working. He gave us bonuses sometimes, if all our customers were happy, and he always tucked mine into my bra in full view of everyone. It was uncomfortable but my cover was a Swedish girl who was desperate for both love and money, so I made it work without actually indulging him. After a month or so there… he called me to his office. He said he wanted me to try something on for him. A tiara of sorts. I don't remember much. I think it had pearls in it, but I doubt they were real. He put it on me and… I barely remember anything that happened for the next three months.”

Natasha pries the pitcher from her hand, refills the glass, and hands it over. Bobbi takes a large gulp from it.

“He made me kill someone, I know that,” Bobbi says. “It's how SHIELD found me. And I know he touched me all the time. But I don't remember much. Bits and pieces. I mostly remember the end, when things stopped seeming right. I started to walk around the house thinking it was mine and Clint's and I ended up running into things. I dreamed of dancing in the living room and labs and things that I didn't understand. Things weren't making sense anymore and the tiara wasn't working anymore.

“I ran into Clint on the street once towards the end. He was looking for me, right after I killed someone. I think I stared at him for a good hour while I was out grocery shopping. I thought he didn't see me.” She laughs, a choked off little laugh. It _was_ ridiculous to think someone with Clint's observation skills wouldn't notice a woman with uncommon features watching him, but it wasn't as if Bobbi knew what he was at the time. “He must have followed me back. It was a house far out of town, but I walked the entire way every week. I was thinking of Clint the entire time and wondering if he was only familiar because I spent so much time staring at him. I thought I was dreaming up scenarios, but I was remembering things—our fifth anniversary, our worst fight, everything. I was just remembering. Then I remembered… I was almost back at the house and I remember Fury saying he was sending me to the devil's lair. And I thought 'I'm not supposed to be here.' When I got back to the house, I remembered I was a spy, and this was a mission and I thought I messed it all up.”

“It wasn't your fault.” Natasha winces at how distant her voice sounds, but Bobbi doesn't take offense. 

“I felt like it,” she says. “I still feel like it. I should have known better. I thought it was just a tiara, and he was trying to make me his mistress. We'd never heard of controlling someone via tiara.”

“Did you wear the tiara all the time?”

“I think so.”

“What happened when you got back?”

“I looked into the devil's face,” Bobbi says wryly. “Actually, I was putting away the groceries when he came downstairs. I took one look at his face and started remembering his file. I created the file for him—he wasn't in our database. I remembered typing it all in. And I threw the tiara at him. It all went downhill from there.”

“Where was Clint during this?”

“In the trees, I guess. SHIELD was there within the hour, so I imagine he called them and took a tongue lashing from Fury over breaking protocol. As my husband, he was allowed all the information they had of my disappearance, but he wasn't supposed to go searching himself.”

“These were MIA protocols?”

“Yes.”

“You didn't search for him?” Natasha asks curiously. “You could have joined me. We might have found him faster.”

“I feel like you're judging me.”

“I'm not,” Natasha says honestly. “I thought the punishment would have been bad, but Clint searched for you and clearly he's still working for SHIELD.”

Bobbi shrugs. “No, Fury wasn't going to fire me. He did knock Clint down a clearance level out of irritation, but it didn't last long. Fury doesn't trust a lot of agents. When Fury needed him, he was right back up a level. But I just couldn't go. I missed part of his capture anyway and… I couldn't. I thought about it, but I was just so drained. Emotionally, mentally, physically. I figured you could handle it. I just wanted to curl up and cry for a while.”

“You don't know if you can trust me.”

“You've had opportunities to kill Clint before. Or to turn him over. You haven't. I don't trust you, and I don't think you're loyal to SHIELD or to Clint. But I don't think you hate them either.”

Natasha shrugs. “It doesn't matter. Soon the year will be over, and I'll go my own way. You didn't finish the story. You threw the tiara...”

“We ended up outside somehow. He tried to throw me off the cliff but I was too strong for him, even if I hadn't trained in three months. I kept remembering things all that time. My head was starting to hurt and I kept thinking I didn't want to touch him, how did he make me touch him? I started to remember him asking me—telling me—to do something I know I never enjoyed in the past and I was so angry, I ended up throwing him off the cliff.

“I don't know where Clint was before that, but he got there about twenty seconds too late. I never asked. He caught me when I passed out and I woke up at SHIELD.”

“How did you cope?”

“Badly. They had to lock me down in psychiatric for a while because I kept clawing at myself. When I went home, I felt comforted as long as Clint wasn't there. So he left. I felt guilty when everything settled. Clint was so insecure at the time and we'd barely gotten over the worst of it, but he didn't seem bothered. It took a couple of months before I felt comfortable enough to have him live with me again. The worst part was that it took forever to trust that people were telling me the truth about who I was.”

Natasha nods. She feels that sometimes too. Every once in a while, she will wake up and wonder if her memories are the real ones. “Thank you for telling me,” she says. Then, more to herself, she adds, “I wonder if that tiara was similar technology to the machines the Red Room used?”

“You'll be left wondering,” Bobbi says. “SHIELD couldn't make heads or tails of the pieces. I destroyed it too well.”

“Of course you did,” Natasha says. “I just wonder how many mind controlling machines they have out there. I'd like to destroy them all.”

“It doesn't seem to be popular. There are less difficult ways to get someone to do something. Blackmail, torture, bribery, the like.”

Natasha hums in agreement as the hotel door opens again. Clint shuffles in, eyes them, and hands Natasha a bag. She takes it with a quiet thanks. 

“We're not plotting anything,” Bobbi says cheerfully. “But I could use some more sleep.”

Clint says something in a language Natasha doesn't recognize. Bobbi responds. After a couple minutes of this, Natasha is frustrated. She's a spy after all; she doesn't like not knowing things. But they probably won't tell her, so she just picks up her new Russian book and settles in for a few hours of satire.

–

Sometimes, Natasha really hates herself for finding Clint's presence comforting. 

A phone call from Hill cut breakfast short, which suited Natasha just fine—she was sick of mutton four decades ago and hadn't been happy about the hotel serving it with eggs—but she was less happy about the meeting Steiner set up with Gashi and allegedly Alexei. 

She's had enough of Alexei for a lifetime.

Which of course means that not only is Alexei at the meeting, he's also sharing a plan for reestablishing the more unsavory parts of the KGB that heavily includes her. As Alexei's comments get more and more terrifying, she ends pressing herself so tightly against Clint his arm has nowhere to go but around her. She dimly recognizes his hesitation at actually making that move and thinks that's for the best about eight seconds before she ends up shoving herself even closer, when Alexei's remarks shift into sexual. The Red Room had a command in them so that even if they had the wherewithal to say no—and they never did—they wouldn't be able to. It's likely it was used to control them sexually too. Natasha feels her heart stutter and restart shakily when he says it.

She presses a hand to her heart, wills it to behave normally—it isn't as though anything as common as a heart attack will kill her so it can spare itself the dramatics—and forces herself to remember that is was one of the commands SHIELD deprogrammed from her. If it hadn't been, she wouldn't have known it and she would have reacted to the words Alexei says out loud. She repeats that to herself like a mantra as Clint throws his arm around her shoulder and tugs her in closer. 

Their conversation heavily involves her for about two hours. Finally, the conversation shifts to something else—Hawkeye. She's grateful as this is what they're here for after all, but at the same time, she wants nothing more than to go back to their hotel and cry under the shower spray. She doesn't want to hear about Clint's brush with death, she doesn't want to listen to them talk about killing him, and she doesn't want to listen to their plans of Steiner's experiments which heavily involve orphaned little girls who have a hard enough life already. But they stay there for another hour, recording the conversation, adding little side notes for Hill and getting some back from her. They manage to compile a list of areas to search, people to watch, and things to look out for. By the time the meeting ends, the list is about as tall as Natasha. 

She shifts away from Clint. He drops his arm from her shoulder, flicks his pen closed with remarkable dexterity, and tucks into one of Bobbi's pockets, earning himself a light tap on the wrist. His hand is slow to return to his side, preferring to linger interestedly on a loop of her jeans. This time, Natasha whacks his hand, hoping to return her equilibrium. Clint gives her a cheeky smile but drops his hand away from Bobbi. “Do we have more plans for the day?” he asks.

“I think we should ask Hill that,” Bobbi says. Natasha agrees, so she texts Hill. Ten minutes later, at the tail end of a conversation about how mutton is disgusting and Clint is a human garbage disposal if he thinks it's delicious, Hill texts back saying Fury has ordered a kill against Steiner, and it wouldn't be advisable for it to be an arrow. Clint wants to know why—after all, their task is to make it known he's alive and well and around. Natasha agrees but Hill is apparently just passing on Fury's message. The game has changed. Now it's get information, kill Steiner, and lie in wait.

Bobbi shares that Steiner had given her his number. Luring him out, therefore, will be easy. Natasha offers up an old world poison that possesses symptoms so remarkably like food poisoning no one will think anything of it. Clint offers nothing except an aborted sentence when Bobbi says she'll go alone. They wander back to the hotel.

–

Soon after Bobbi leaves to meet with Steiner, Natasha orders one of everything without mutton on the room service menu. She adds two bottles of wine, a bottle of vodka, and several types of beer to the order. After several hours of organization, she needs something to help her relax. And Clint needs a distraction, having unhappily watched Bobbi leave in a flurry of black silk. “She'll be fine,” Natasha tells him. “She does this all the time.”

Clint transfers his heavy gaze from the door to her. With another man, Natasha might have felt uncomfortable enough to go for a weapon, but Clint has always fallen a hairline below dangerous. No matter how lethal he is, there's always been an innate kindness in him that made it impossible to be truly frightened of him, a trait he used well when the situation called for it. “I know,” he says. “But there's always a chance she won't come back. No matter how good she is. And I'm here. I could potentially help.”

Natasha thinks of Lucya, with her wild dark hair, bright green eyes, and a smile that could light up the night sky. She kissed Natasha under a Christmas wreath when they were thirteen, at a party they were infiltrating. With red lipstick and a blood red gown, she looked like something out of a fairy tale, and she winked at Natasha as she sashayed back into the crowd. It had been the start of something wonderful until Lucya took a knife to the stomach. Even with six decades and erased memories, Natasha still remembers pressing her jacket to the wound with frenzied terror. It hadn't helped. Lucya was dead less than two minutes later. “Or you might not be able to,” she says, “and you'll live with that memory forever.”

Clint's gaze sharpens, but he lets that bitter truth pass without comment. “What did you order?” he asks instead. 

“Everything without mutton.”

“Mutton's not that bad.”

“Eat it everyday for four decades and see if you still think that,” she shoots back. Mutton was cheap enough, especially when one of the doctors in the Red Room owned a lot of sheep he wanted to get rid of. The girls of the Red Room lived off mutton and sheep's milk cheese. In America, the grocery stores tended not to carry those things, which as far as she was concerned is a plus. Some days, she wakes up and the memory of the Red Room is so strong she forgets she's not part of it. It usually ends when she gets into her kitchen. With a missing sentry, she's jarred back into reality. Her every move is still tracked, but it's tracked quietly and from afar, and every little mistake she makes is not cause for hours of punishing training. If it's a major mistake, a therapist will say something or Hill will pass along a message from McKay. Otherwise, nothing happens. 

A knock on the door pulls her from her musing. Clint beats her to the door. Four young men bring in two rolling carts full of food. She pounces on the vodka and pours herself a tumbler full of it while Clint opens some of the dishes. 

Natasha settles down with a plate of vatrushka, limonnick, and pastila. A hazy memory floats to the surface of a woman's warm, sweet laugh and reprimand of, “Sweets aren't food, Natalia.” It's not a Red Room memory. There were no women there. It wasn't an implanted memory, she thinks, because she can't remember the Red Room ever sending them out with their own names. She wonders if it's one of her own memories. Her mother, maybe. The thought is strange. 

She feels the heavy weight of Clint's gaze on her. He doesn't avert it when she looks at him. “What?” she says more hostilely than she means to. The little of her face she can see in the mirror shows her face as open and vulnerable.

There's a moment of hesitation, a stilted cut off noise from him, and then more silence. She silently wills him not to say anything and reminds herself not to say anything for the rest of the week. Clint's presence can feel like a balm, and she's used to having him hover over her by now. It's easy to do or say something without watching herself, but if he starts commenting, she'll have to stop herself. She already has a therapist she doesn't want to spend time with. “I was going to get back at you,” she muses out loud when the silence is getting unbearable.

“For what?”

“Talking to Hill about me.”

“How's therapy?”

_Helpful. I haven't had a nightmare in weeks before the other night_ , her brain supplies, but she says, “A waste of time.”

He hums a neutral sound and says, “Were you planning to share the vodka?”

“No.”

Clint flicks an amused look at her and goes back to looking through the trays. He settles for a bowl of borscht, some pelmeni, and herring. He sets the dish on the table and goes back to the beer. She swipes a finger through the borscht to taste it. “Bring me some borscht, will you?”

She remembers her manners when Clint sets down the bottle of beer he was looking at and flicks a quick barely noticeable glance at her. But he's a nice person, so he fills up a bowl for her and brings it back to the table. She thanks him and waits for him to settle down with his food before eating. She's halfway through a pastila when she realizes he's not eating but staring down at the line her finger left in the borscht. “I wanted to taste it,” she explains.

His eyes flick up and back down at the soup. After a second pause, he picks up his spoon and starts eating. She wonders if he thinks she put something in it. Maybe a year ago. Her freedom is a special, fragile thing, and she has no desire to give anyone a reason to not let her go. In a few months, the year will be over and she'll go do something else. Security, she guesses. The only other thing she can do is ballet, and there's nothing in the world that will make her want to dance again.

They eat in silence. Natasha cycles through a dozen topics but she doesn't know how to broach any of them. She's no closer when he finishes his plate and pushes it aside. She watches him drain the beer bottle, check the time on his watch, and send a glance out the window. From the window, she can't tell if it's snowing or sleeting but she does know that Clint won't be able to see anything. It's been about an hour since Bobbi left. She didn't take her comm with her, just two knives, a gun, and her batons, tucked neatly in the hip pockets of her gown. The black silk was something she carried with her on every mission, an all purpose dress, easy to dress up or down as the situation calls for it, and plain enough it won't be remembered. Natasha studied the dress while Bobbi got ready, but she can't recall anything about the cut other than the v-neck dipped low enough to warrant a skin patch to hide the scar Natasha gave her. 

“Her name was Lucya,” Natasha says as she cuts into her last piece of vatrushka. She doesn't know what possesses her to speak. The silence isn't overwhelming, and if it bothered Clint, he would have said something since he never met a silence he couldn't fill. But it comes out of her mouth before she really registers it. Clint has an easy presence and he's never asked her for answers. Relaxing around him is dangerous, but she's been doing it since they met. Once more won't hurt. Lucya is long dead, and the memories can't be used against her anymore. She's made her peace, most days. 

Clint doesn't ask her what she's talking about. He doesn't say anything; he just transfers his gaze to her face and waits.

“I still remember,” she says. “I've always remembered. She was the first memory that came back for me. _I_ was the first memory for her. We went on for years. Stolen moments aren't like books make it out to be. Secrets moments are bittersweet, and they make you bitter. We weren't going to run away, but as long as we stayed, we had to hide it. We believed, so we stayed and we kept it hidden.” It was easy to hide in a makeshift fort of blankets and old cloaks in the snowbank outside. Natasha had always been the Red Room's best, and Lucya was their most trustworthy, and they were given freedoms the other girls weren't. Not the freedom to love—the Red Room girls were not trained for love—but the freedom to disappear for a few hours, as long as they didn't go further than the closest city. So they kissed in snowbanks underneath wool blankets and had sex in a questionable motel with a protest going on outside. They went on dates to bookshops and amateur ballets, their fingers meeting in feigned accident over book spines and inside darkened theaters. Natasha babbles for who knows how long, giving him every detail of Lucya she can remember. Her freckles that ran all over her body, the way she never laughed out loud but smiled prettily, how she could munch on candy for hours, how she always sounded like she was up to something, how she was the only person shorter than Natasha at barely five feet tall. She talks and talks, moving her gaze restlessly from Clint to the window and back. 

“How did she die?” he asks eventually, as she winds down the story of their last kiss—a rubbing of noses, a playful lip bite, and a quick peck because they thought they would have more of them.

Natasha closes her eyes. The image of Lucya covered in blood pops into her head and she opens her eyes and focuses on Clint's face. “We were killing—somebody important.” She cannot remember who or why or where and they are not important anyway. “We were at a party to kill someone important and we got caught. As we fled, she was shot. I was shot,” Natasha remembers. “I forgot about that. I ducked in time and got a bullet to the shoulder, but she took one to the stomach. I tried to staunch the bleeding with my jacket but she didn't make it a full two minutes.” Those two minutes had felt like an eternity. “Ivan's men were three minutes late.” 

“Would they have helped her?”

“They kept us alive. We killed each other only during certain times in training. Other than that, we were well treated. They wanted us to be loyal. Our punishments were more training, to help Mother Russia. If they mistreated us… well, they gave us the means to destroy them.”

Clint does not point out that they had the means to destroy their own creations too, but she can read it on his face. “What did you do in those three minutes?”

“I kissed her. And I cried. Until I heard Ivan's men come. I did not want to be caught crying.”

There's a heavy silence. She wants to have a different conversation, but she doesn't have it in her to say anything else. Clint spares her after what feels like a decade but she thinks is only fifteen seconds. “Do you want any fish or should I finish it? I need enough time to dissipate the scent or Bobbi won't kiss me.”

“You can have it,” she says. “What's Bobbi's issue with fish anyway?”

Clint shrugs.

“Really? No reason?”

“I'd blame her mother's cooking if I had to guess,” he says. “Adaline cooks like she's never heard of flavoring. Want some more borscht? There's another bowlful left.”

“Sure.” He brings her the bowl as she's pouring herself an even larger glass of vodka. She drains it and pours herself another as he settles at the table again. “Tell me something about Bobbi.”

“Anything or something specific?”

“Something about you and Bobbi. Anything.” There is the barest hint of desperation in her tone. She wants to hear about a happy relationship, no matter how much she resents it some days.

Clint eats a few bites before he answers. She can tell by his tone that he's weighing his words. “Bobbi was the first person to tell me she loved me.”

“You were—Haven't you known us both for the same length of time?”

“Yeah. I met you two a day apart.” He pauses. “My parents died when I was four. My dad found it difficult to drink, drive, _and_ beat his wife at the same time. He wrapped the car around a tree. I didn't have the words for it then, but I was grateful. I hated them both. My first memory is of my father holding my feet to a flame. My mother never did a damn thing about it. If he was hitting us, he wasn't hitting her and that was just fine with her. Then we went to the orphanage where no one wanted to adopt us. We went to the circus. I went to New York City, just because it was close by. I joined the military where I was promptly dishonorably discharged for lying on my enlistment forms. Or punching my commanding officer. I was never sure. I came back to New York and I started killing people. At no point did anyone think I was anything more than a waste of space.”

He does not say, _even you_ , but she remembers saying him to that once. He flinched, as if he heard it before, but he looked as if he was waiting for it to come.

“Bobbi's a spy, I knew that. But to be honest, I never thought, 'She's just trying to lure me into complacency.' I thought, 'She's playing with me 'cause it's so easy.'”

She wants to say something, but she doesn't know what. It _was_ easy to mess with him a dozen years ago. He hadn't trusted her, been weary of everything she said, but messing with him was somehow still so easy. “But she wasn't.”

Clint smiles. It's a happy, open, warm smile. It's not aimed at her, but it's been so long since something she said inspired happiness, so she basks in it. “Yeah,” Clint says. “She wasn't. I'm still a little shocked about that.”

–

Bobbi comes back three hours later to find them deep into a vodka bottle. Natasha's doing much better than Clint—she can actually stand up. Then she reminds herself that she was experimented on, and in order to get drunk, she would have to drink her body weight in alcohol. Literally. So she supposes she can't judge Clint too much considering he's holding his own pretty well.

Bobbi laughs warmly when he stumbles as he tries to hug her. She catches him easily and leans him against the wall. Natasha watches them for a moment, taking in the black silk hugging Bobbi's hips. Her view is then obscured by Clint's wandering hands. She clears her throat. Bobbi turns around and says, “What did you two do?”

“Let's just say I don't think Fury will be paying our room service bill,” Natasha says. “We ordered a couple bottles of vodka an hour ago.” The hour before that, they ordered even more wine, having long since run out of their initial stock. Clint was fine after eight beers and two bottles of wine, but after about half a bottle of vodka, he was out of it. Natasha isn't drunk, but she's feeling pleasantly languid. She stretches out. “There's some sweets left, if you want a snack.”

Bobbi loops her arm around Clint's waist and guides him to the bed. When he stumbles onto it, she undoes her dress and lets it slide to the floor. She tosses her shoes, removes the skin patches, yanks the pins out of her hair causing snow to waft down and takes a swig of the vodka bottle Clint abandoned when she came into the room.

Natasha settles her vodka bottle down and says, “Successful mission, I assume.”

“Yes,” Bobbi says. “He's being buried under snow as we speak. Unfortunately, he didn't know who gave Clint up to Gashi. I'm told the Red Guardian knows though. Other than that, Gashi holds all the cards. He's funding the Red Guardian's attempts to restart the Red Room.”

Natasha is grateful for the alcohol. She wouldn't want that news sober. “Do we know how far they are?”

“No, but Steiner said Gashi's holding his money hostage so I imagine not far. They have to have everything ready before they get the girls. They won't be able to keep a bunch of small children quiet and unnoticed. And things are more regulated than they were when you were a child.”

Although in Russia, they still aren't highly regulated, Natasha thinks. Not that she knows for certain, but she imagines no one will figure out if identification is faked or notice that the same person adopted a dozen pretty young girls. If they do… well, sometimes it's safer not to ask. “Fury?”

“He's ordered kills for Gashi and the Red Guardian, but he wants information first if it's not impossible. We have their faces and a general location for them. Shoskatov is renting a house not far from the touristy part of town. Gashi has a business in town. I have the address. He either has an apartment or he's staying at a hotel.”

“Not a house?”

“Steiner was under the impression he lived close to his business. I checked out the building on my way back. There's no housing around there. It's close enough to the touristy parts to warrant a hotel, but he might keep a lease. There's a high rise nearby.”

“Did you charm this out of Steiner?” Clint asks. Or at least that's what Natasha thinks he says. Drunk and with his face buried in a pillow, it's hard to tell.

Bobbi glances at him with surprise. “I thought you fell asleep. I was asking the wrong questions to be charming.”

Clint murmurs something, rolls over, and hugs the pillow to his chest. After a couple of minutes, Bobbi turns back to Natasha and rolls her eyes with exasperation and affection. 

“It's my fault,” Natasha says. “I over-shared and wanted him to forget it.”

“He won't,” Bobbi tells her. “But since you're determined to leave, he doesn't bother asking.”

“Does that mean if I stay he'll want to know?”

“If you stay—if you're allowed to stay—Fury won't let you work alone. And frankly, there's about three people at SHIELD willing to work with you, and that's Clint, Hill, and me. Hill was supposed to be a field agent, not a handler, but none of the handlers wanted to deal with you. You'll likely be stuck with Clint, and yes, he'll want to know.”

“Why?”

Bobbi hesitates. “Clint's never made friends at SHIELD,” she says slowly. “In the beginning, there were enough men who wanted me that no one made my husband feel welcome. Especially since he wasn't educated. It was easy to mock my marriage to a man who could barely read or write. They said I was just making myself feel better because I didn't want to be challenged. I ignored them so they transferred the mockery to Clint. He spent a lifetime being abused and told he wasn't enough, so it wasn't difficult to make him feel worse.”

“I can't image Fury being happy about that.”

“He didn't know. Coulson was supposed to deal with Clint.”

“Clint doesn't like Coulson,” Natasha says. “Is that why?”

“In a way. Coulson tends to be very classist. He didn't appreciate being saddled with Clint. He didn't think Clint was as good as Fury thought. He attributes Clint's kills to luck rather than skill to this day. Coulson said nothing when it was happening. I think he hoped making Clint feel like he didn't belong would make him leave. I don't know why. Clint was captured by SHIELD and released from prison under a contract that stated he work for us for a certain amount of time before he could leave freely. Coulson should have known he couldn't leave but I don't think he remembered. And besides, a little bullying was hardly the worst Clint had gone through. At that point, the only thing that could have destroyed him was someone promising him love and taking it away. I could have destroyed him. A bunch of idiots with more muscles than brain cells couldn't.”

“I imagine that had something to do with why you didn't like them back.”

“It didn't matter. I could have stuck a knife in their balls and they wouldn't have taken the hint. I earned a doctorate at a young age—and that was still even later than I could have earned it if my mother had cooperated—I was lethal and graduated at the top of SHIELD Academy, and I was attractive. It had nothing to do with me being interested. It was a domination thing. They didn't like that I wasn't playing by their rules. They liked it even less when Clint came into the picture. One of them even tried to get me arrested for treason since I clearly had some relationship with Clint while we were hunting him if I was willing to marry him immediately. It didn't hold. Fury knew of our relationship, and he'd moved Clint from target to potential asset. He was letting me try to lure Clint to SHIELD, not that I knew.”

Natasha thinks of Fury. She's known him since he was a young man. He's one of the few people who could hold their own against her. Even back when he was younger, he always seemed to know everything. She'd almost fallen into a trap of his several times before. It's not surprising he would know and try to use it to his advantage. Clint's a good person to have on your side. “What happened with Coulson then?”

“One of my many admirers,” Bobbi says acrimoniously, “told Coulson on a mission that Clint betrayed them so he had to shoot him. Coulson shouldn't have believed him since he knew the guys were going out of their way to make Clint unwelcome, and even if he did believe them, he should have gotten Clint's body. He didn't follow protocol, and Clint was left for dead. He was very confused. He actually called me from a safe house of his that SHIELD didn't know about. He knew him being left behind was not a good thing, especially since it wasn't a mission where those who fall behind get left behind. Which means by the time the team touched down again, I already talked to Fury. The entire team was arrested the second they touched down. Even Coulson. It didn't think that would happen. He's Fury's best friend and he had just been appointed as director of operations.

“When Fury talked to them, they all were under the impression that Clint betrayed them, although they couldn't give the reason why. When Fury asked them why they didn't follow the regulations, they didn't have an answer. Eventually someone confessed to their bullying. Clint hadn't mentioned it and didn't want me saying anything. They hid it pretty well from Fury. Fury was livid. The man who claimed Clint betrayed them was arrested. He would have been killed if he actually shot Clint, but one of our target's bodyguards did. Coulson was promptly removed from his new position, and all of them were knocked back to clearance level one. I've never seen Fury so livid. He called a full blown meeting of the entire base and made half of us cry.”

Natasha believes that. She has never met a man better at making people behave than Nick Fury. “And so Clint doesn't trust Coulson.”

“Yeah.” Bobbi sighs. “There's a little bit of bitterness.”

“Clint wants to be my friend,” Natasha says.

Bobbi's lips twitch with amusement. “He would probably already consider you friends, if not close ones. He likes you. He wants to know about you, but he also knows you'll view intimate knowledge as a threat. So he'll let you be if you'll let him be.”

“What does that mean?”

“Clint's not stupid, and he doesn't trust you. If you ask him personal things and don't return in kind, you'll hold the upper hand. He won't lose that kind of power to you. If you want to be his friend and confide in him and have him confide in turn… Clint needs friends. He's friendly and most of SHIELD likes him, but he only really has me and Barney. He needs someone. I think he'd like that person to be you, but he doesn't want to be under someone's thumb again. Don't do it because you want the upper hand. Do it out of genuine respect and admiration.”

–

Over the course of the next week, they break in to Gashi's office, apartment, and a very memorable hovel where he kept a mistress and their illegitimate child. They get no usable information. Trackers are planted on Alexei and Gashi, but they don't go anywhere interesting or meet with each other. They get nothing from tapping phone lines, searching the security cameras, or anything else. When the week ends, Hill calls them back the Kazakhstan base.

Natasha wakes up on Tuesday morning feeling happily refreshed. SHIELD may not have the best comforts, but this bed is better than the one in the hotel, and it's warmer too. She dresses in sweatpants and a sweatshirt and follows the scent of food down to the cafeteria. She makes a plate, locates Clint stirring a cup of coffee while reading the morning paper, and goes to sit next to him. “Where's Bobbi?”

“In our room,” he says. “She's like you. She needs some alone time. The three of us have been attached at the hip the last few weeks.”

Natasha had gotten her alone time during showers and occasional shopping sprees so that Clint and Bobbi could be alone. It was enough for her. She's spent too much time alone. “Then I guess you're stuck with me.” She stirs her tea. “Are you up for sparring?”

“Why wouldn't I be?”

“Half your body was in a cast last month.”

“I'm fine.”

She doubts that, but Bobbi isn't around to make her husband take care of himself. “What's happening in Kazakhstan?” she asks. 

“Nothing out of the ordinary,” he tells her, pushing the paper towards her. “Crime, death, disease, political failings.”

“Some things never change.” She takes the paper, neatly folds it, and leaves it by her elbow. The headline facing proclaims someone being taken down for fraud. She thinks of Bobbi's comments the week before. It's been a long time since Natasha had a friend, but she and Clint are already probably halfway there. Something visceral points out to her that she has less reason to distrust him than he has to distrust her. A leap of faith wouldn't be a bad thing, if she can only force herself.

It doesn't have to happen today luckily.

“Did you eat?” she asks.

“Yeah.”

There's no plate in front of him. “Are you sure?”

He flicks his eyes to her. “I won't pass out in the middle of the sparring if that's what you're worried about.”

“I was making polite conversation.”

One corner of his mouth tugs upward. “Are you sure about that?”

“Yes. Polite inquiring as to one's state. Isn't that the way it's done?”

Clint hides his smile behind his cup.

“Eating is necessary for both energy and health reasons. Your body is still recovering and we've taxed it over the last two weeks. Stop smiling at me.”

His face carefully blanks out, but amusement remains visible in his eyes.

“Never mind.”

“Don't worry. Bobbi made sure I ate.”

“Did we learn anything new?”

“Not that I know. Maria was up bright and early to review last night's communications, but no one picked up anything interesting. Unless your husband picking up redheads in bars is interesting to you.”

“That doesn't have anything to do with me. He likes redheads.”

“Is that why he chose you?”

“I'm not sure he chose me.” She takes a bite of meat. Mutton. She puts the piece back down and carefully scrapes the meat away from the center of her plate. Clint rolls his eyes and grabs a piece. “Human trash can,” she says.

“It's edible food,” he says with a shrug.

“So?”

“ _So…_ when the only way to eat is going through trash cans, you don't turn down edible food.”

She wonders if she should comment on that. What she would say though is beyond on her. “I don't think Alexei chose me,” she says. “I think he was offered me.”

“Why? You're the best. They had no reason to bargain you.”

“I was a Red Room girl with the commands and training still embedded. They knew them but I wasn't always easily controlled. As for Alexei, I think they wanted us to have children they could have control over. I don't think they knew that the Red Room took that from us. I don't know what Alexei wanted.”

Clint shrugs. “He coulda just wanted you. You're attractive.”

“I'm also dangerous,” she says, tamping down the nervous butterflies that emerge in her stomach. So Clint thinks she's attractive—big deal. So do most men attracted to women. He's not in the minority. He's just the only one to have never given any indication he'd welcome her in his bed.

“Yeah, well, so is he.”

“Danger attracts danger?”

“More he could handle you and you wouldn't be afraid of breaking him.”

“I'm not afraid of breaking him at all,” she says viciously.

“Claws in, tiger. We know you're not.”

She pushes her porridge bowl away. “How can you look someone in the eye and lie to them about love?”

“We do it all the time,” Clint says. She tilts her to glare at him. “What? I'm just saying. I've seen you do it a million times. You know _how_ he does it. But this time you're the one emotionally devastated.”

“I don't have emotions to devastate.”

“Then why do you care he lied to you?”

“I lie. I don't get lied to.” 

She thinks of Yelena's long blonde hair covering the tips of her breasts. “ _I love you_ ,” she'd murmured in the dark still night, holding Natasha's riveted gaze. _They'll never take me away from you._ ”

But she'd lied, and Natasha had believed her. 

Before Clint can come up with more dangerous questions, Hill walks up to them, clutching a large steaming mug and looking six hours past dead tired. “We have something. The codename of Gashi's contact. Lethe.”

“What's with all the Greek mythology codenames?” Clint mutters as he stands.

“I'm not up to date on my mythology,” Natasha says. “What's Lethe?”

“I don't think 'up to date' is the phrase you're looking for,” he says.

“The river of forgetfulness in the underworld,” Hill says at the same time. “But Barton's right. It's been three thousand years. I hope nothing new is happening.”

–

They have a meeting in a small conference room. Unlike the New York base's glass and metal building, the Kazakhstan base is made of solid brick and whitewashed walls. She waits with Hill and a cup of tea while Clint goes to bring Bobbi down. When they arrive, Hill plays back the tape for them.

“Lethe is a strange name for a Russian agent,” Natasha offers when it's clear no one else has anything to say. “And Greece doesn't have many agents.”

“SHIELD has a lot of agents with mythological codenames,” Bobbi says. “I'm told the FBI and CIA do as well. Greek and Roman mythology is very popular in America.”

“If we're looking at Americans, SHIELD has a file for every known freelance agent. I imagine we're looking at FBI or CIA,” Hill says. “In which case, we might be stepping on toes.”

“The CIA has denied knowledge of this. Fury checked. He didn't get anything back from the FBI though. They know we planned to act if they didn't answer or said they were watching, so they can't say they weren't given fair warning.”

“I can't imagine what the endgame would be,” Natasha interjects. “The Red Room isn't known by anyone but SHIELD and Gashi's prostitution ring shows no signs of reemerging. We watched him. We wiretapped him. This is the only illegal thing we can find. How would the FBI know more than we do?”

“It could happen,” Hill says. “SHIELD is run by humans after all, and humans make mistakes.”

“Was that a joke? I think that was a joke,” Clint says.

“Do you have anything to contribute to this conversation?” she bites back.

“Nope,” he says cheerfully. “Never heard the codename. But Bobbi's right. We're probably looking for Americans. The comment was about capitalism.”

“Other places have capitalism,” Natasha points out, but she understands his point.

“I'll ask Fury to—” The phone trills, cutting Hill off. She grabs it, says “news?,” and waits while the answer is given. She puts the phone down after a minute. “Let's go up to the monitor room. There's a phone call from Lethe. The accent is American.”

The monitor room is small but bustles with activity. A group of blue jumpsuit-clad technicians shout out orders, make phone calls, and mutter curses when something doesn't go their way. They follow Hill to a young woman with a serious demeanor and a face that seems too young to be working here. “Good morning,” she says. “I'm rewinding for the call. It's a man who sounds American. No interesting information was exchanged though. It was a simply a check in call.”

Hill nods but the set of her mouth isn't happy. Right now, they need something to work with. The technician plays the call. The man—Lethe—has the same traces of a Midwestern accent as Clint does. He says very little beyond pleasantries, an acknowledgment that his boss is thinking about “the deal,” and a promise to call at a later date.

“What do you think? Hill says, turning back to them. Her gaze focuses on Clint and Bobbi and turns troubled. “Doctor? Barton?”

Natasha turns. Clint is still and stiff, and Bobbi looks unhappily unsure.

“What's wrong?” Hill asks. 

Her words shock Clint into moving. He spins sharply on his heel and strides off.

Bobbi hesitates, takes two steps towards the door, turns backs to them, and says quickly, “That sounds a lot like Barney, his brother.”


	6. Part Six: Clint

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not entirely happy with this, but I hope you enjoy it. I totally didn't realize it's been two months; I rewrote this a dozen times and couldn't get it right. (Also, I think I abused italics.)

Boston is freezing, but Clint has his rage to keep him warm. It's been simmering for a week now. That's how long it took for Natasha and Bobbi to find and detain Gashi. He doesn't remember making a deal with Bobbi for him to stay the ten days in Kazakhstan, but there's a security video of him agreeing. Over the past week, he's ignored the mission in favor of staying livid and Maria has let him. Instead of doing anything useful, he's made good use of the punching bags available in the gym.

His knuckles are still bleeding. He can see the blood starting to show under the gauze. He should have let Bobbi change the bandaging during their layover, but he was still stewing and she opted to leave him be, but she's still the only one to come close to him. Natasha might be gearing for a fight, but he doesn't want to fight her. They both have the lingering resentments and skill sets that could easily turn that fight deadly, and they both know it. And Maria won't fight him, but she might knock him out for trying. Hell, she might knock him out for even thinking about it.

And he won't fight Bobbi. Most of the time he can barely spar with her even knowing she's better at hand to hand combat. He may not remember much of his childhood, but his father left indelible imprint of a hit on it. He couldn't fight his wife if his life depended on it.

Clint huffs to himself and keeps walking. He can feel Bobbi's presence close at his side although he can't see her, and he can feel Natasha lurking close behind. He doesn't have a sense of Maria, but he guesses she's the stiff figure he feels lingering by Natasha. Everyone else moves around them too quickly to be part of their group. And if it is Maria, he can only guess at her expression. Stern and severe, expressing her displeasure at the situation in the set of her mouth. She's probably talked to Fury already. Clint supposes he should be happy that Fury didn't throw him a cell to cool off. But then, Fury will want answers more.

“Fury sent a car,” Bobbi says quietly, barely audible over the rushing wind and the crackling it causes in his hearing aids.

Clint swallows down the urge to snap at her. She's done nothing wrong, and she's probably feeling nearly as betrayed as he is. They have no real family. Bobbi only has a distant father, a mother who wants her daughter to be someone else, grandparents who can't be bothered to care. Clint has a dead father he hates, a dead mother he pities in between flashes of hate, a brother he'll die for. And grandparents, somewhere. A set of grandparents who didn't want their daughter marrying the butcher and a set of grandparents… he doesn't remember what his father said about his parents. He doesn't care. They're probably dead now, and if they aren't, he still doesn't have anything to say. He remembers sitting in the police station with Barney and a frizzy haired social worker as they called his grandparents. Four people who didn't care to pick up the boys and left them to the mercy of an already full orphanage.

They find the car. The ride takes too long and gives him too much time to think. He focuses the anger on Barney's apartment. It's a cheap place, and since it's Boston, that means it's not a great one. It's permanently stained and small, and there aren't any elevators, just creaky, dimly lit stairs patched over with different colored wood. But it's no worse than their little cabin in the middle of nowhere Iowa, where the windows were always dirty and the wood rotting and the tubs and sinks cracked and mildewy. No worse than the patched up roof that leaked whenever it rained or snowed, or the threadbare rugs, or the rusty faucets, or the refrigerator that couldn't maintain temperature, or the fireplace that was always low on wood, or the sagging couch where Clint and Barney slept because there was only one room and it was their parents'. No worse than an orphanage with no money and thousands of expenses, where they slept in the same bed with another boy and ate flavorless thin oatmeal made with water and slept under half unraveled blankets. No worse than a dented trailer older than their parents patched together with whatever was available and holding six kids under twelve at a traveling carnival. Definitely better than the long abandoned warehouses Clint squatted in from time to time in his late teens and early twenties, where there was always enough dust to choke a herd of cows.

By the time they get there, Clint's anger has turned to himself. He should have known Barney wasn't living there. This is something he keeps to keep Clint off his tail. Understandable if Clint worked a different, more normal job. But he doesn't, so it's annoying and—

Clint shoves the thought aside. So his brother either didn't trust him or was willing to lie to his face. Big deal. Bobbi was the first and pretty much only person to have any faith in Clint, so he can't say he's surprised. People don't tell him things. He's used to it and it doesn't bother him much anymore. But he's not a little kid. He'll be thirty in a few months, and it gets old, being talked down to. He gets it—he couldn't read or write until he was twenty something, and he plays dumb with their enemies. Still, he'd think people knew it was mostly a game these days.

He slams his fist into Barney's door. For the first time in hours, Bobbi slips her arm around him, and the rage gives way to hurt. He thinks, _maybe I should just ask him why_ , but then his brother opens the door and before either of them can register what's happening, Clint has delivered a nasty right hook to his brother's face.

“You said you wouldn't do that,” Bobbi reminds him. Maybe he did promise, but he doesn't remember. She lets go of him, drags Barney up, sits him on the couch, and finds an ice pack. “Barney, we have reason to believe you're working as an agent under the codename Lethe.”

Clint will hand it to his brother—Barney's expression doesn't flicker from confusion. “I'm not sure what's going on.”

“Don't lie,” Natasha says calmly from the other side of the room. Clint spins and catches sight of her tossing something in the air. He snatches out of midair and flicks open the leather bi-fold. An FBI badge with Barney's name. Exactly what he expected to find. 

Barney's eyes narrow. “Don't go through my things, Widow.”

Before Natasha can say something with the potential to inflame this conversation more, Maria steps up, looks at the badge, and says, “I don't understand. The FBI should have said they didn't want us involved. Why didn't they?”

Barney takes the ice pack off his face and sighs. “We turned over DuBois to SHIELD for lack of information. When we connected Gashi to DuBois, we wanted to do this on our own. Everyone thought it was best achieved by pretending to do business with him. It wasn't that easy. Gashi covers his tracks well and we only found out about his latest venture by accident. When the opportunity came to get his trust, we couldn't hesitate.”

“You sold me out,” Clint manages to say.

Barney doesn't look at him. His jaw tenses and releases. “Yeah, we sold you out. One of my agents saw Widow in town and I know if she's working, you're around. It was a lucky guess that you'd be there.”

“How did you find out about Clint killing DuBois?” Maria asks.

“It was an arrow,” he says. “It wasn't a hard guess. It was either him or me.”

“And you do realize that you sold out your brother to weeks of torture that came a hairbreadth away from killing him right?”

“I left the information of where he was with a contact of Widow's as soon as I was told.”

Bobbi is stiff, Clint notices. She wanted them to be wrong. She wanted it not to be Barney. He could have told her days ago it wouldn't happen, but he wanted them to be wrong too. After all, it's not like either of them have any family. Barney was part of their family, but Clint can tell Bobbi is unlikely to forgive him. She stands woodenly and crosses back over to Clint. Barney's expression tells Clint he's already guessed what that means for him. 

“I regret to inform you,” Maria says mildly, “that interfering with a SHIELD investigation is still against the law, even for an FBI agent. Director Fury will work things out with the FBI director, but I'm going to have to arrest you in the meantime. Romanoff, take the badge with you.”

Barney doesn't look surprised. SHIELD is above the law in a lot of ways, and generally speaking, it's not good form for one agency to interfere with another. He'd been expecting this.

The door shuts behind them, leaving Clint standing in the middle of a decrepit living room with Bobbi. “We helped him pay for this,” he says, and his voice sounds far away even to his own ears.

“I know.”

“I thought...”

“I know.”

“Goddamn it.” Clint swings wide and knocks down the bookcase that's mostly empty anyway. “There's not enough here. I always thought that was weird but—You remember I didn't know what to do with a whole lot when I had it. I thought he was like that. But this place is a front. He probably lives on base.”

“Probably,” she agrees. She glances around. “What do you want to do?”

“What's the plan?”

“Natasha and Hill will take him to the New York base. Fury will contact the director of the FBI and probably give him a dressing down. We don't need to be there for that. We can go home for now.”

“Yeah okay.” He grabs his brother's key ring and locks the door behind them out of some misguided urge to help.

–

Fury calls him to base the next morning. His knuckles are still bleeding, and his body is aching from hours of training. The gym in their spare room isn't much but it's enough to keep him from being driven up the wall by his own thoughts. He'd used sex for that earlier in the evening, but Bobbi was fast asleep. She might not mind, but she'd probably make the suggestion of a therapist again.

Fury takes in Clint's shuffling gait and says as mildly as he can manage, “I thought we already had a discussion on over training.”

“Tell me what you want, old man,” Clint says without any real bite.

Fury's mouth twitches like he's tempted to smile. He spins and starts down the hall. Clint follows him slowly. “The director of the FBI isn't happy, and your brother is as much of a pain in the ass as you are.”

The reminder stings. Even with sixteen hours to get used to it, he still can't believe Barney betrayed him.

“The director is here, so I'm talking to them both in a cell. You need to watch.”

“Do you enjoying torturing your own agents, Nick?”

Fury stops in the middle of the hallway. One of the junior agents nearly runs into him then scampers off quickly before Fury notices. “You're scaring the juniors again,” Clint says.

“Not my fault. I swear the Academy makes me out to be a monster.”

The Academy is run by a man who claims he got overlooked for director. Clint never attended, but several people have commented that he wants Fury to be feared and disliked. Personally, Clint thinks that just proves that the guy shouldn't have been director. The agents may not always know Fury's motives, but they trust his judgment. A man willing to scare recruits, cause problems over fifteen years later, and mess with the needed trust isn't someone they could follow.

“Why do I have to be here?”

“You need to hear it from your brother's mouth. Hill says you've been useless all week. I get it, but you need to handle this. It's not going away. If you don't want to this on your own, we have an entire group of therapists.”

“Fine.”'

“Romanoff will be with you. If you think I scare the junior agents, you should see her.”

That's not the whole story. The junior agents are terrified of her, sure, but they're also turned on by her. Which is the usual response to Natasha but it makes for interesting run-ins. And it's not just the juniors. Half the men on base sport terrified boners when she's around.

Ten minutes later, Clint is settled on the side of the one-way glass. Natasha lounges in a chair next to him. Fury must have gotten her out of bed for this because she's wearing her pajamas. It's not uncommon to see agents who live on base stumble around in pajamas when they're not on duty, but the lemon yellow pants printed with ducks are kind of funny. “Did you buy that in the kids' section?” he asks, mostly to give himself something to do. The FBI director is currently yelling at Fury in the hallway. On the other side of the glass, Barney studies the cuffs with interest. They're pretty much impossible to get out of since they shock you if you try and the volts only get worse with every attempt, but he doesn't look like he's trying to get out. 

Natasha scowls at him but doesn't deign to respond.

“I get it—you're not feeling silky nightgowns. But they've gotta have plaid pants or something. Doesn't the women's section have petites?”

Natasha kicks him in the shin. The pain races up his leg, but he ignores it. 

“Are you too small for petites?”

“If you need an outlet for your nervous energy, throw a punch. Don't try to insult me.”

“How sweet. You care.”

“What did I _just_ say?”

“You're adorable.”

“Don't insult me,” she growls and punctuates it with a punch that makes his arm numb.

He spared finding a response by Fury and the FBI director entering the cell. He shifts his attention. 

“Mr. Barton. We have some things to discuss,” Fury says.

Barney says nothing. 

“What are you going to do?” The FBI director asks. Clint tries to remember his name. He's fairly certain it's George, but he can't remember his last name. It's been a long time since he heard it.

“I'm asking questions, George.”

“Don't insult me, Nick. There's no reason to hold my agent.”

“I'm asking questions. That's it.”

“Nick—”

“It's okay,” Barney interrupts. “Director Fury is doing his job.”

“Hear that, George? Mr. Barton… were you aware the assassin Hawkeye worked for SHIELD?”

“Yes.”

“Were you aware that Hawkeye was on a mission at the time?”

“I assumed so, yes.”

“How did you come to choose Hawkeye for your negotiations with Gashi?”

“We were aware we signed over Francois DuBois to SHIELD and he was killed with an arrow. Gashi mentioned he lost a lot of money in the past from a dead partner and was looking for more discreet business partners. An agent saw Black Widow in the area and I happened to know that Widow is currently faking loyalty to SHIELD and didn't work alone but exclusively with Hawkeye.”

Clint can feel his jaw clench in anger at Barney's words. Natasha needed a little more kindness than she'd ever been given. It's no surprise her loyalty is in question when no one who wanted it deserved it. 

He sneaks a glance at Natasha. Her face is hard, but her eyes are sparkling with tears. Angry tears, if he knows her. He shifts his attention back quickly. If she sees that he saw the tears, his arm will be numb for the next three days.

“Were you aware that you received this information by manipulation?” Fury continues.

George sputters. “You don't know that!”

“ _I_ do. But just so you do… Mr. Barton, what is Hawkeye's name?”

Barney's jaw flexes. “Clint Barton.”

George sputters again but Fury talks over him. “And how do you know that?”

“He's my brother.”

George goes silent and tense.

“Were you aware that the papers you and Hawkeye signed allowing him to keep you in the loop are only valid so long as you are a civilian?”

“Yes.”

“So, were you aware that you illegally obtained important information from my agent?”

George steps in with, “You can't know that Hawkeye didn't know.”

“We can ask him if you prefer.”

Barney tenses. “No, we don't need to,” he says quickly. “I was hired by the FBI a year out of my prison sentence. Prior to that, I had the help of Clint and his wife to set me up. I continued to keep up the charade. It didn't seem important to stop.”

“Why?” Fury asks.

“I didn't work missions where I was likely to get killed, and Clint would worry. It didn't seem important to tell him. I figured I'd get around to it eventually.”

“And you didn't.”

“No.”

“You didn't want him to worry but you were willing to sell him to his death?”

“He wasn't going to die!” Barney sounds desperate. “Gashi told me where he was being held after a week or so. He told me he was still alive. I left the information with a known contact of the Black Widow. I knew she was asking around and she'd get there.”

“But you knew he was being tortured?”

“Ye—Yes.”

Clint usually admires watching Fury unnerve a person, but he wants to barge in and tell Fury to stop. Barney betrayed him, but in the grand scheme of things, they're still family. But that's probably why Natasha is here, to stop him. So he forces himself still.

“Did it ever occur to you that you couldn't control Gashi's temper and you couldn't guarantee Hawkeye's safety?”

“I—”

“Because when Widow reached him his heart had stopped beating due to shock torture.”

Barney shifts uncomfortably. Clint glances at Natasha again. No one had told him that.

“Did you know that she was barely able to restart his heart and that it took twelve hours of surgery for the doctors to be reasonably certain he would survive? Did you know he crashed multiple times during surgery?”

Barney remains silent, staring down at his hands in the cuffs.

“You know what the dumbest thing about this is? You could have just asked. He would have done it. We would have done it Instead you betrayed him, interfered with a SHIELD mission with illegally obtained information, and made no attempts to mend the fence when we contacted the FBI for help. And you're complicit in it, George. That's a lot of problems to fix. Until they are, I'm holding your agent here. Don't worry. He'll be fine. I won't even let Hawkeye get a punch in.”

Barney mutters something under his breath.

“I'm not sure he won't,” Fury says. “But he's standing outside if you want to ask him.”

–

He gets home to find Bobbi sitting on their bed, holding her phone, wearing a patient and profoundly sad expression. “Natasha called to check on you. She said you weren't answering your phone.”

He peels off his outer layers. “Have you eaten yet?”

“I had some toast and coffee.”

“You feeling okay?”

“I opted for a long bath instead of real food.”

She's sore, he translates. Sex last night had been both frequent and rough. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you.”

“I'm fine, honey,” she says impatiently. “Just tell me why you wouldn't be okay, besides the obvious.”

He kicks off his boots. He should have taken them off before he got into the house but he wasn't paying attention. “Fury had me listen to him interrogating Barney.”

He tugs off his long sleeved shirt. Before he can get it off completely, he feels Bobbi's arms wrap around his waist. He pulls the fabric from his arms, tosses it aside, and spins to face her. “I feel so stupid for not noticing the signs,” he admits. “I _always_ know when someone's living in an apartment or not.”

“I didn't notice either.”

He buries his face in her shoulder. She smells like roses. The bath oil her mother sends her every year for her birthday. There's always a set of things Adaline sends, and they all smell like roses. Bobbi uses the bath oil the most, but everything else is a hit or miss. She doesn't use things with scents usually. She definitely didn't use the rose scented lotion because he can smell her usual lotion, clean and fresh, on her shoulder. 

“What did Barney say?” she asks.

“Not much more than what he told Maria. He's been working for the FBI for about five years now. He was in charge of the Gashi mission. Once Fury told him I was watching, he just shrunk into himself and let George do all the talking. What's his last name again?”

“The FBI director? Williamson.”

“Have you met him before?”

“Yes. He's a good director, but I think he gets irritated over SHIELD's missions. We try to make sure we aren't stepping on people's toes, but some things overlap. He and Fury became directors at the same time, but we have a higher success rate. Not that the FBI have a bad success rate.”

“He didn't know who Hawkeye really was.”

“Your orphanage profile and your military record were the only accessible files on you. They were erased when you began working for SHIELD. As far as the world knows, you never existed. If they pried, they would have set off an alarm.”

“He didn't know Barney had a brother? Does he not talk about me? I visited him in prison for god's sake.”

“It's likely Fury erased prison records too. You don't exist, Clint. Even the copies of the title and property deed on our house were seized by SHIELD.”

“Fury's holding Barney for now. I can't tell why, but he didn't tell anyone from the FBI that we have Gashi is custody. What happened there anyway?”

“Natasha bribed his mistress into telling us when he was planning to come. The money could support her and the child for years while Gashi wasn't giving her much. It's easy to handcuff someone with their pants down. I can feel you smiling.”

“It's funny.”

“Ideally, we'd like the Red Guardian, but Gashi says he travels between Russia and wherever Gashi is. But without Steiner, they're lost.”

“I'm not sure I believe that.”

“Natasha didn't either. Steiner is one of many unethical scientists out there. It wasn't even his specialty. They'll have no problems finding someone if they're willing to pay. Shostakov is willing.”

“Do you think you can get Michaels to step in?”

Bobbi pulls back some to look at him. “That's a dangerous game to play, Hawk.”

“I know. But it might be the only way to win this. Shostakov's not going to stop until he finishes it. Michaels is unethical enough, and he was helpful.”

“Yeah, two weeks ago. He might consider that his monthly quota. He's nice to me because I'm the only one from Georgia Tech that didn't alienate him.” She sighs. “Talk to Fury.”

“You're giving me run of this?”

“It's your idea.”

“You want me distracted from my brother.”

“That too. But it was your idea.”

–

“Leon Michaels? You're screwing with me, right?” Fury asks.

“It makes sense.”

“Dr. Michaels is an idiot who can't figure out how not to get caught.”

“Is he a doctor? Bobbi's never referred to him like that.” Not that Clint remembers for certain. It's been years since they've had any sort of talk about her university years since she's content to forget them.

“He was,” Fury says. “There's been talk of taking away his doctorate for years.”

“Not action?”

“There's never action where doctorates are concerned. How are you planning to do this?”

Clint shrugs. He hasn't thought this through. “Get Michaels and Shostakov together without suspicion.”

Fury snorts. “Michaels is better qualified for this crap, I'll give him that.”

“Unethical and creepy?”

“I was talking chemistry,” Fury says with amusement. “Gashi's been saying stuff. I'm not sure Steiner had the necessary degree.”

“There's a degree in psychopathy?”

“Criminal University's most popular course. Talk to Romanoff. See if she can tell you anything about the way the Red Room was run. When you're done with that, maybe you can check out Petrovich. If you still thinks Michaels will work, see if Morse can contact him. I'll try to put something together there.”

“You're saying yes to keep me busy.”

“So?”

–

Asking Natasha about the Red Room is easier said than done. He thinks of strategies for hours and finally corners her in the cafeteria shortly after lunch, where she had a heated debate with Melinda May over handguns. When Melinda heads off, he takes the vacated chair, steals a piece of charred eggplant, and says, “We need to have a conversation you're not gonna like.”

“I don't like any conversation,” she says as she shifts her tray away from him.

“This one you're really not going to like.” He also doesn't think it's totally necessary. A couple of decades of being enemies means Fury's likely asking for this just to screw with Natasha, but there's also a good chance he won't let Clint get any further without Natasha's information. And it could be useful. If Michaels can convince the Red Guardian he's capable of doing what's necessary to restart the Red Room, they're that much closer to taking it over and down. If he doesn't have the necessary skills, well, then like Bobbi said, there's a lot of unethical scientists and most of them can be blackmailed, bribed, or threatened into helping. If all else fails, they can get a SHIELD scientist to come out of their lair and try to lie. Unfortunately, the only one who wanted to do that is Bobbi, and he doesn't think Shostakov will buy that.

Natasha eyes him with something approaching skittishness, not that she'll ever admit it. “Okay. What do you want?”

“Not here. Finish your lunch. We'll talk in private.”

“I'm not inviting you in my apartment.”

“Thank god. I don't want to know what you think tasteful décor is.”

The edges of her lips turn up. The little cat smile is his least favorite of hers because it makes her look every inch the femme fatale she can be. “There's only one severed head.”

“I admire your restraint.”

“It was difficult. There were so many bodies to choose from.”

“Still there's something about minimalism.”

“I'm surprised you know what that is.”

“I don't. It just sounded right.”

“Where's Bobbi?”

“With her research assistant peering down a microscope. At least that was happening last I checked. It's impossible to pull Bobbi out of research she enjoys. I'm not sure what's going on.”

“You don't have high enough clearance?”

Bobbi's been working at SHIELD longer, but he's only one level behind her so he probably does have the clearance but he can't be bothered. He doesn't need to know. And he doesn't want to spend the time trying to figure out science way above his head just because he needs a distraction. “I don't need a headache today. I'm already anticipating the bruises you'll leave.”

Natasha neatly cuts her last eggplant slice in half. He's pretty sure they're supposed to be roasted and not charred, but cafeteria food is never the best. At least they get fresh vegetables here. “Only bruises?”

“Wishful thinking,” he tells her. Because she'll probably try to break a bone when he mentions the Red Room.

“Let's go then. We can go to my apartment.”

“There's a dozen conference rooms around here.”

“I want a decent cup of tea.”

So up they go. Her apartment sadly lacks severed heads. Sadly, because as disturbing as a severed head would be, at least there would be something. Natasha's added absolutely nothing to the stark white walls. Everything looks exactly as it did before she moved in, with the exception of the heavy light blocking drapes now over the living room window. He sits at the rickety kitchen table and waits for her to make her tea. Halfway through the process, she remembers manners and offers him a drink. He thinks about accepting her vodka offer but figures it's not worth the inevitable fight with Fury for inebriation on base.

When she settles across from him, he says, “I need to ask you some questions about the Red Room.”

Her hands tremble just enough to make the liquid slosh but not hard enough to make it go over the rim of the cup, and her voice sharply asks, “Why?”

“I thought it might be a good idea to try to find another scientist to throw at Shostakov. It wouldn't be a bad way to lure him out. Fury thinks you'll have an opinion on that.”

“He wants to torment me.”

“I guessed so. But it might be helpful. Gashi implied Shostakov wasn't happy about Steiner because he didn't know enough. Let's see if we can find someone who can impress him.”

She takes a sip of tea and nods slowly.

“Don't make something up. If a question is too uncomfortable, just tell me not to ask.”

“I don't suppose I can do that with this entire conversation.”

“If you really want.”

“You don't sound convinced.”

“You hide from everything,” he says bluntly. “It's hard to tell if it's difficult or if you just can't be bothered to answer honestly. But this isn't a game between partners. We want to prevent the same thing that happened to you happening to other girls. Even you aren't as cold as to wish that on someone else.”

“Some people would disagree.”

“Some people haven't seen you cry.”

Natasha places her hands primly on her lap. “I never know if I hate you or not. Okay, little hawk, ask away.”

It would probably be best to ease her into this conversation, even though she's taking it much calmer than he would have thought. Clint thinks back to what he knows about the Red Room. “Did they do a lot of surgeries on you?”

“Not that I remember,” she says steadily. “Beyond the hysterectomy and repairing injuries incurred, I can't think of one.”

“Were you given frequent injections?”

Her lips purse in thought. “At the beginning, I think.”

“How long is the beginning?”

“I—I'm not sure. Maybe five years or so. No more than eight.”

Chemical, he thinks. Biochemical, probably. He's not bad at chemistry, but once biology is added to the mix… that's Bobbi's territory. “Can you tell me anything about the injections?”

“Some of them were frequent,” she says slowly. “I remember getting one with every meal for several days at a time. Some were daily, some weekly. We never knew what was in them. One of the girls died from them,” she adds as if she's just thought of it. “Two girls got sick.”

“Were any of the solutions colored?”

She's starting to relax, he can see it. These are easy questions. He hates the idea of bringing up those machines Petrovich brought with him, but those were probably a big deal. “I don't know. I didn't pay attention,” she says.

“Did they ever give you a hint what was in them?”

“No.”

_The metal containers are important_ , his brain supplies helpfully when he can't think of what else to ask. And they are important, and he can guess what they're for, and he doesn't want to ask. “Do you think a chemist or biochemist would be the best choice?”

“We can't throw Bobbi at him?”

“Do you think he would go for that?”

Natasha is silent for a long while. Eighty six seconds. Eighty six long, heavy seconds. 

He really needs to stop timing her silences. Except he can tell things from them. This long means she's lost in a memory. An unhappy memory, judging by the haunted sadness just visible in her eyes. “No,” she says finally, her voice steady despite the whiteness of her knuckles. “He would probably take one look at her and dismiss her a bit of fluff.”

“That won't end well. For him at least. Actually, that could work for us. Bobbi would probably lose her temper and break enough bones to slow him down. Or she'd just kill him.” It's a plan at least. Not a great one—Bobbi will lose her temper, sure, but she probably won't break bones unless that's part of the plan or she's in an excessively bad mood—but it's a plan. That doesn't involve him asking about the machines.

“We could do that too,” she says. “Are you going to keep coddling me or are you going to ask about the containers?”

“I was thinking of coddling you,” he says.

“They usually put us to sleep right as we got into them so I have less bad memories of that. I just knew I was going to wake up with a new name or as blank slate Natalia.”

“How do you even do that?” he asks. Then he remembers he doesn't know the answer, and neither will she. “Okay, but were you given years of injections first or did the containers and injections happen together?”

She finishes her tea before she answers. “I think we finished the injections first. Or maybe we were almost done with the injections before they put us into the machines. Anything else?”

“You need decorations.”

“I won't be here in a few months, Clint.”

–

“And?” Fury says. “What did she say?”

“That you're trying to torment her.”

Fury peers over his computer screen at Clint. “You knew that when you walked out of here earlier.”

“We can throw Michaels at him. He'll do. We can try Bobbi. Natasha thinks he'll dismiss her, but as far as we know, Shostakov's doing all the interviews himself and all we need is to get close.”

“Let's give that second one a shot first. Even if he has backup, Morse can handle it. And I'll leave you and Romanoff as her backup. Feel free to kill whoever you want. Hill's not bad to have in a fight either, so she won't have to be at a handler's distance.”

“Is keeping Maria as handler the best idea?”

“Have a problem?”

“She's an agent, not a babysitter. We don't use handlers much here.”

“Romanoff needs a babysitter. And it'll just be 'til she leaves. Hill was medically discharged from the military. This lets her recover and retrain slowly. Some people have the sense to care about themselves.”

Clint doesn't say, _why should I care about myself? No one else ever has_. Last time he asked something along those lines, he got three added sessions of therapy a week and a lot of tears from Bobbi. And it's not true much anymore. It's just… he's only ever felt useful as the assassin Hawkeye. “So what are we doing?”

“Right now, I'm thinking killing junior agents. There's something to do, Barton. Find Mark Fields and give him a punishing training session. Petrovich is being transferred. You can talk to him later.”

–

Mark Fields had accidentally blown up part of a French embassy. While SHIELD has a base in France and a friendly relationship with the government due to channels set up by a Jacques Dernier back in the fifties, everyone is just a little pissed off about this. It takes Clint twenty minutes to track down the twenty year old as he's wisely hiding from Fury until the first wave of anger abates. 

After a training session that is more grueling for Clint's recovering body than Fields, he tries to shower. The tepid water isn't helping his sore muscles, so he gets out, dresses more warmly than he needs to, and stumbles into the cafeteria feeling old and cranky.

Fields had just bounced up and waved goodbye.

Clint settles for a turkey sandwich, lemonade, and something resembles peanut butter and jelly but doesn't taste like it for a late lunch. He's puzzling over over the jelly when Bobbi hurries into the cafeteria and heads straight for him.

As usual, she manages to look both disheveled and totally put together. The tan pants and blue button up are wrinkle free, but her hair is flying out of its tight bun, and her glasses are skewed. The glasses don't matter when she's not in the lab—her eyesight is good enough most of the time, but hours of microscopes, lab reports, and cells gives her a headache from squinting too much. She stops in front of him and says, “Annabelle said you needed to see me immediately.”

“I haven't talked to Annabelle in two months,” he says, reaching up and tapping the glasses back into place. “Fury probably called her to tell you about the idea we had, and she tricked you into stopping so she could eat lunch.”

“Is it lunchtime already?” Bobbi checks her gold and diamond watch, a wedding present from her parents. Her mother hadn't been happy to learn that it clashed with their wedding bands and Bobbi's engagement ring, both of which the jeweler described as rose gold. All Clint knew is neither of them had cared about the rings so they'd chosen the first ones they could live with. To her mother, it had been a decision worthy of theatrics and swooning. Amazing, considering Bobbi didn't a damn if the watch clashed or not—she needed a new one anyway after hers was accidentally stepped on.

When she realizes it's already three in the afternoon, she shoves a hand in her hair and sighs. “Fine. I guess I'll eat too. What's up there?”

“Sandwiches and a half cup of chili.”

“It's mostly tomato sauce, isn't it?” she asks, even as she starts to move away. She comes back with a bowl of fruit salad, a sandwich, and a cup of coffee. “What plan? Why are you eating that?”

“I don't even know what it is.”

“The plan?”

“The sandwich.”

“It's fig jam and crushed cashews. They put it out when they run out of peanut butter.”

“When did that happen?”

“Last year I think. Annabelle's allergic to cashews. She made a fuss over it.”

Clint doesn't remember this at all, but then he usually only eats at the cafeteria when he's working late or he forgot to bring his lunch, like today. “Obviously the Red Guardian will be looking for a scientist.”

“Yes, we talked about this,” she says impatiently. “I don't think he'll take me seriously.”

“Neither does Natasha. But all we have to do is get close to Shostakov, and if nothing else, he'll probably grant an interview with you. Don't you have a known scientist alias under a unisex name?”

“I do.” She gulps down half her coffee and nibbles on an anemic strawberry. It's her third cup of coffee today, which means she either didn't sleep or she'll be working all night. He bets the latter. This already feels like one of those days he'll be sleeping at his desk until five in the morning. He could go home, but he hates rattling around the house without her when it's not necessary. He's spent too much of his life alone. “That could work but if it's not Shostakov giving the interview?”

“Why wouldn't he? It's pretty clear he doesn't trust anyone else to do it right.”

She shrugs, gulps down the rest of her coffee, and stands. “We'll give it a shot. I'll see you later.”

Clint snags the back of her pants before she can go too far. “You didn't touch your sandwich.”

“I don't have time.”

He wraps it a napkin and hands it to her. “You'll have it finished by the time you get back to your lab.”

She rolls her eyes, but she takes the sandwich and smacks his hand away.

–

The mission is set up first thing in the morning. Bobbi contacts Shostakov under the alias Dr. Jamie Parker. An interview should be set up soon. Dr. Jamie Parker has a history of doing morally dubious experiments. As for how Dr. Parker found out… Jorn, a mutual contact of Natasha's and Clint's, had come through for them as always. He'd easily been able to find the information and stand surety for Dr. Parker's credentials. Jorn had also passed along a message from Natasha that simply states, “I know you're looking for me.”

With that done, Bobbi returns to her lab. This morning she'd drunk an entire pot of coffee and stuffed her hair in an elastic without paying attention, which left tufts of hair sticking out. They hadn't made it home until four in the morning, and Bobbi left bed around eight. Clint assumes her alarm went off. She bought a fluorescent green alarm clock that buzzes like a hoard of angry bees a few years ago—he would like never to hear it again, and probably neither would she, which is why she's so quick to shut it up—but this morning, he doesn't remember feeling her reach over to hit it. The other option is that she dreamed of her experiment. That happened regularly. (The third option is that she either never went to sleep because of, or was awakened by, his tossing and turning. If pressed, he would put a bet on this option, but he would rather pretend he had a peaceful night).

Clint rattles around base for a while. Yesterday he was on call, but today he had nothing to do. His late night attempt to talk to Petrovich had been met with the man's sneering silence. The mission would be set up by Hill, and Natasha had taken off to spar some junior agent into proper awe. He has no other friends, a fact that only stings every once in a while now. If he's desperate, he can start a card game with some guys in one of the conference rooms, but ever since Natasha's come here, the jokes and comments are too much.

He thinks about training, but his body is still sore from yesterday. He can find someone like Melinda or Rebecca or Lisa or Georgina or any of the numerous people who are good friends of Bobbi and will indulge him for a few hours. 

Or he can visit Barney's cell, provided he manages to keep his fists to himself.

He probably can.

Barney is sitting cross legged on the small bed, staring at the wall, clearly bored. Clint watches through the one way glass for a few minutes, ignoring the nervous glances the guards are giving him. They're under orders only to stop him if things get out of hand and punches are thrown, so they don't make any attempts to stop him. One or two open their mouths to say something but end up not speaking at all. Since he doesn't have a reputation for being volatile, Clint assumes they've decided to leave family matters in the family.

He enters the cell. Barney doesn't look away from the wall, but he says, “Hey, little brother.”

Clint settles onto the opposite bench without saying hello. Now that he's here, he can feel the anger crawling up his stomach and making him grind his teeth with the effort to keep back harsh words. And he must be clenching his fists too because his healing knuckles feel tight and crackly. He draws a deep breath and hisses it out through his teeth slowly. “Did you want a book or something?”

“Since when do I spend time reading?”

Clint shrugs. “Clearly I don't know what you do.” He looks down at the floor. The only interesting thing about the white tiles is the faded bloodstain in the corner of one. He can feel Barney shift his attention to him but ignores it.

“Are we gonna fight?”

The question makes Clint's anger evaporate. With the anger gone, he's left with the familiar feelings of not being enough, of being unwanted and unloved, and of trusting the wrong people. “You were doing your job,” he says in a voice that reminds him of being eight years old and having to make excuses for Trickshot and the Swordsman, again, because the alternative was another beating. He swallows and tries to say it with conviction. It doesn't come out. Instead, he says, “Was there another choice?”

“Is there ever?” Barney asks cynically, and there's the anger welling up again.

“There's always a choice, Barney. You could have told me. You could have worked with SHIELD. But I wouldn't have done the same to you.”

“You've never been in my position.”

“And what position is that?”

Barney unfolds himself and stands. “Second best. You've never been second best.”

When Clint was four, just before his parents died, he remembers his mother thinking about leaving. She said it a lot and she never did leave, either out of fear or lack of resources. But the only shelter she found would only take one child, and she'd turned to Barney and said, “I'll take you. Clint will be fine here.”

When they found the circus, completely on accident two years later, the ringmaster looked over Clint and doubtfully said to Barney, “I guess we'll take the little one if you insist.”

When Clint first came to SHIELD, he spent eight long weeks tripping over words while they taught him how to read. It was embarrassing to realize that he could read a children's picture book without stumbling over the words. Behind his back, people would snigger. As much as he loves language and its intricacies, he still reads slowly, and he can't read out loud without tripping over his words. It still causes sniggers, and most of the time it puts him behind even the handful of agents with dyslexia. 

Clint has never been first in anything. “What the fuck are you talking about? Are you talking about the bow? 'Cause I've got news for you, Barney, shooting a bow in the only damn thing I've ever been first at.”

“It was all that mattered for years.”

Trickshot was—fanatic. The bow was his life in so many ways. Training them had meant the bow was also _their_ life in most ways. And Barney had failed in two major ways: he wasn't as good as Clint, and he didn't want it to be his life. Clint's been the best for years, but it was also the only thing he could cling onto most days. As long as he could shoot, no one in the circus would question what he was doing there, tagging after his more verbose, more educated, more useful brother. As long as he could shoot, there was no cause for a drunken Swordsman to knock the food out of his hand and tell him he can eat when he forgets how to miss, never mind that was Trickshot's area. As long as he could shoot, he could mentally run away from squatting in abandoned houses, eating out of garbage cans, and committing thefts that started as misdemeanors and moved quickly into felony territory. As long as he could shoot, he didn't have to do that anymore; he could just kill a man with a single whoosh of an arrow and be done. He could be useful to SHIELD and a good enough assassin to be in equal standing with someone like Mockingbird and therefore worthy of her.

As long as he could shoot, he would be okay.

And Barney had felt trapped by the constant training. Clint remembers it vividly. Summer or winter, they would spend ten hours outside a day, four days a week, until their muscles forgot how to be sore and they nearly passed out from exhaustion. Summer was worse, especially rainy days, where the sticky humidity caught in Clint's chest and throat and made him wish they were allowed water breaks more often. In the winter, they bundled up in musty sweaters and tried not to fall on the snow and ice. 

“It hasn't been important for a long time,” Clint says. “And if that's your reason for betraying me—I really hoped you had something better. I would have even taken 'I was just doing my job.'”

Barney slowly sinks back into the seat. “I _was_ doing my job. It didn't seem like a terrible idea. I figured Widow would try to find you so she can keep her freedom. But Fury's right. I couldn't control Gashi's anger. I didn't want you to die. It's been a long time since I hated you that much.”

“Why did you hate me at all? I envied you. You could walk into the room and make anyone feel at ease. I was just the awkward kid in the background being small and useless and out of place.”

“Didn't feel like that to me.”

“Well. It felt like that to me.” Clint sinks into the guest chair. “No, don't say anything. I'm not here to fight. I'm pretty sure the guards outside are under orders to drag me out if I get violent anyway. Let's talk about Gashi.”

Business is easy, Clint thinks. It'll give him time to process Barney's words.

Barney eyes his wearily. “What about him?”

“We took Gashi into custody before we confronted you. What I'm curious about is what information you were buying him with—besides me. Gashi threw in with Alexei Shostakov and Roman Steiner to restart the Red Room.”

“The Red Room?”

“Where Black Widow was trained. Started by Ivan Petrovich. They kidnapped orphaned girls during the early forties and made them into the best spies in the world by erasing their memories, doing dangerous experiments on them, and impressing a deep love of Mother Russia. Natasha is the only one to have escaped. Several died on missions. The rest started turning up a few years ago. Controlling them became a problem, so they got rid of them. We have Petrovich in custody as well.”

“Who's Shostakov then?”

“Former KGB agent, still loyal to the ideals. And Natasha's much hated husband. He goes by the name the Red Guardian and he appears to stay close to Russia and former Soviet territories. No need to guess why he wants to restart the Red Room. Steiner's a biologist Bobbi brought in last year for illegal experiments. He escaped through a glitch in the system.” They've decided to stick with that story for now. A traitor has never been found. “Bobbi killed him a couple weeks ago. We have a plan in place to get Shostakov. We can't figure out how Gashi got involved in the mix.”

“I don't know either, if that's what you're after,” Barney tells him. “Could've been a good business venture.”

“He could've been thrilled by having brainwashed little girls in the proximity of him.”

Barney winces. “If there's proof he's a child molester I don't wanna know. This job is hard enough.”

“I don't know. It seems likely. He and DuBois were running a child prostitution ring. Hard to believe they weren't interested themselves—these people usually are. And his mistress seemed too young to have a five year old.”

“So what happens now?”

“Fury will arrange something with George Williamson.”

“Are you gonna punch me?”

“Not right now. I'm trying to figure out how hard I should.”

–

“Like I had an easy life—!”

By the time Clint makes it home, the confusion has given way back to anger, and he throws a plate at the wall. Bobbi picks her head up from her meal, distractedly tells him not to break their dishes, and goes back to studying the data in front of her.

He throws another plate and there might be some petulance behind it.

She sighs, pushes her glasses onto her head, and rubs the bridge of her nose. “Clint, you have every right to be upset, but I think you should be having this discussion with Barney. I don't know why he thought that. It could have been that it shifted from _you_ being the one who had to prove his place to him. Didn't you say he left a lot to look for jobs as a teenager? Maybe he felt like he was being pushed out.”

“That's not _my_ fault.”

She sighs again. “No one said it was.”

“You think I'm being stupid.”

“I think you're trying to pick a fight, and I'm not the person you're mad at. Go talk to Barney in the morning. I can't help you.”

He throws another plate and storms out, ignoring her calling, “I said in the morning!”

–

Barney is asleep when he gets to SHIELD, but that doesn't stop him. He jerks his brother up, and he wakens immediately. “Goddamn it, Clint,” he says sleepily. “You wait until I fall asleep?”

“I _hated_ the fucking circus. I wanted Trickshot's attention off me. I wanted to be as far away as fucking possible from the Swordsman. They were crazed about their fucking jobs. They were thieves. They shouldn't have been allowed around children? Why the hell would you _want_ that? Why the hell would you hate me for that? You could have fucking had it. I never gave a damn.”

“Stop shouting, Barton,” one of the guards outside yells into the room. “I've got one hour left on this damn shift, and I don't want to get a headache during it.”

Clint gives him the finger.

Barney rubs the sleep out of his eyes and sits up. “I don't know how to fix this,” he says tiredly. “You're right—they weren't anyone to look up to. But I never felt as useless as I did when it was you up on that stage.”

“And I felt useless when I _wasn't_ on that stage.”

And there goes the emotional whiplash again—the anger drains out of Clint, and suddenly he feels every minute of the forty hours he's been awake. 

“I don't want you to hate me,” Barney says quietly. “And I don't want to hate you. Can we just agree there were misunderstandings and move on?”

“You let me be tortured.”

Barney flinches. “There's that.”

“I can forgive you for not telling me about your job. I can forgive you for wanting what I had and the anger it caused. I just… I can't forgive you being okay with me being tortured. I was there for weeks before Natasha found me. The information you gave her contact didn't make it to her easily. I could have died—you had to have known that.”

“Where does this leave us?”

“You'll be released soon enough. Maybe one day I'll want to talk to you again.”

–

Clint goes into his locker and washes down two sleeping pills and a Valium with vodka disguised as water. He's out of gum to help disguise the scent of the alcohol, so he goes down to the cafeteria and finds the array for those working the night shift already up. He chooses pasta salad that smells like garlic and nothing else and egg salad heavy on the pickles and wishes he had more alcohol left in his locker. He carts his meal to the side of the cafeteria away from everyone else eating. 

He's halfway through the pasta salad when Maria comes into the cafeteria, immediately fills her thermos with coffee, and comes to join him. “You need food,” he tells her. “What's with no one but me eating here?”

“They're eating,” she says, pointing to a group of older agents, sitting at a table near the entrance and exchanging animated tales. 

“They're all the verge of retirement.”

“How're you doing, Barton? They told me you saw your brother twice today.”

He shrugs. “That's not an answer,” she says severely.

“Why does anyone want to know?”

“Surprisingly, people don't find you a complete nuisance and actually like you,” she says tartly. “And so, there's some concern over your state of mind.”

“I can do my job, no problem,” he tells her. She hasn't been here long enough to realize that's the only thing anyone cares about when it comes to him. 

She kicks him underneath the table. Not as hard as Natasha does, but it burns all the same. “Don't make me recommend extra therapy for you. Fury's letting you decide how you're going to handle this, but he'll accept my take on it too.”

“I can do my job,” he repeats. “That's the only thing that matters.”

“Not to me.”

“I can't forgive Barney but I'm not going to focus on this. It solves nothing.”

“No, but I'm sure it hurts.”

He shrugs. “That's all I got, Hill. Take it or leave it.”

“Neither. Talk to me before I set you up with daily therapy sessions.”

“What do you want?”

“Tell me the truth, Clint.”

He puts down his fork and studies the table, wondering what to say. Punching Barney in the face would be a short-lived satisfaction. It wouldn't change the fact that he lied to Clint for years, that he was okay with using him as bait, that the inevitable torture Gashi clearly had in mind for him didn't register as bad. “He's my brother. And right now, I hate him. That'll change one day. I just don't want to see him. I want life to keep moving the way it always does. One day, I'll be able to deal with it.”

“That's not healthy.”

“It's worked for me so far.”

“Really? How well does it work for you? You kill people for a living—”

“Only bad guys.”

“—you spent most of your first five years here in therapy—”

“We all have mandatory therapy.”

“—and there are a dozen rumors about Bobbi nearly leaving you.”

“Are any of them recent?” he asks anxiously. It's a fear that's never gone away, no matter what happened. It's a fear that permeated every second of their marriage for years until Bobbi got fed with him and told him she was leaving until he figured out if he wanted to stop playing victim for five minutes.

Now _that_ had required a lot of therapy. Both alone and with her. It hadn't been pretty and the dying rumors about their marriage had come to life again. He still doesn't understand why everyone cared so much. He knew that a lot of the guys were pissed she wasn't with them, but everyone cared way too much. Maybe because marriage is rare among spies, maybe because it was clear she hadn't done her job, maybe because SHIELD's gossip level surpassed the gossip level of a cliched high school movie. 

“No,” Maria says. “And you're not listening to me. You're fucked up, and you spent years fucking up because of it. Get your head out of your ass, Barton, and deal with it. Your brother betrayed you, and you can forgive him or not, but that doesn't change the basic facts of it. Deal with it now. Why are you so pissed?”

“I thought he loved me, even if he never said it. I mean, we're guys. It wasn't encouraged with our parents or the circus. And—did he seriously not think Gashi would torture me?”

“I talked to him yesterday, and Natasha talked to the contact she got the information from. She was afraid to go to him in case he turned her over to the KGB. Your brother didn't know that, but the information was in place for about three weeks already. So he was trying to protect you to some degree. Maybe you shouldn't judge him so harshly. You're a good person, Barton, but you've done terrible things. And other people in your position have done worse things to survive. Barney spent eight years in prison for doing the right thing and turning over his employers when he could have made good money for years, and he was barely nineteen. You spent three years on the run from SHIELD starting when you were nineteen, but your relationship with Dr. Morse kept you from being brought in. You were given a job instead of a prison sentence, and you were allowed to stay, no questions asked, no trust withheld. If the FBI really wanted your brother, they could have gotten him released. They didn't. From his point of view, it might have been easier for you than him. He's undoubtedly wrong, but you two don't get the chance to talk much and you were separated for years. Your early therapy reports suggest resentment towards him. He clearly has some resentment towards you. Maybe you shouldn't run away and hide from this and get everything out in the open.”

“I don't know what 'everything' is. The basics we already know. I can't change his mind, and my resentment was for what I viewed as him abandoning me.”

Maria sighs and stands up. “Just think about it, okay? I'm not asking you to forgive him. I'm asking for you to handle it in a way that doesn't involve you over training, having copious amounts of sex with your wife, or taking pills with alcohol. And for the record, Barton, don't bring alcohol to work. If you're doing it because you don't want Bobbi to know, rest assured I will tell her if you ever do it again.”

–

“Talk to me,” Clint tells Natasha the next afternoon as he nurses a cup of extra strong coffee. They're in a conference room going over the mission plan and waiting for Bobbi to tear herself away from her research. The experiment hadn't worked, and she would have to leave off another test until they came back.

Natasha flicks her eyes to him. “Why are you whining at me?”

He has a little bit of drug and alcohol hangover, but he won't tell her that. This morning it had taken an ice cold shower and a breakfast of coffee and chocolate covered espresso beans to get him moving enough to get dressed. Even now, he feels sluggish and tired, and his muscles aren't responding very well. He clutches at his coffee because he's afraid he'll lose his grip on it and says, “I live to annoy you.”

She frowns at him. “Your voice sounds strange. Are you sick? That's not great timing.”

“He's not sick,” Maria says as she enters the room. “He's still out of it from the drug and alcohol cocktail he thought no one saw in the locker room.”

Natasha glares at him.

“Don't tell Bobbi,” he says weakly. “She'll kill me.”

“ _I'll_ kill you, and I'm much crueler.”

Clint isn't sure about that. Bobbi has her moments. But she's also a much softer person with him, so maybe Natasha has a point. “Only when it comes to me.”

“What did I miss?” Bobbi asks from the doorway.

Natasha, being Natasha, doesn't heed his plea at all. “Hill mentioned a drug and alcohol cocktail.”

“Oh, Clint,” Bobbi sighs, “you promised you'd stop doing that and go to a therapist if you felt the urge.”

“It was late,” he says, aware it's a weak defense.

“A pity our medical and psychiatric units aren't open twenty four seven,” Maria deadpans. “The mission plan is simple,” she continues before Bobbi can say anything. “Shostakov wants to meet on neutral ground. Morse's alias lists London as home, so we'll meet in Catania, Italy.”

Natasha snorts. “Right next to a volcano, great.”

“Seems like you would be right at home,” Clint counters.

“The territory is neutral, but he'll likely have backup. Our techs traced his call to Russia and managed to hack into his flight details. He's scheduled to arrive three days before the meeting.” Maria is used to having to talk over them by now. “We have no idea who his backup will be but I'm guessing Romanoff can give us a couple of ideas. We also have no idea how he'll react to seeing a female when he's clearly expecting a man.”

“He'll be pissed, but he might just invite her back to his hotel. Say no, at least at first,” Natasha advises Bobbi. “He likes to charm women.”

“I'd rather you give ideas on who he'll be with.”

Natasha shrugs. “Former KGB agents I guess. Like we saw in Russia, they probably aged badly. But these guys were always quick on the draw and eager to shoot. Clint and I can take them with our eyes closed if need be. You just focus on Alexei.”

“Do you want to meet with him?” Bobbi asks.

“That's what I'm thinking,” Maria says. “You sent him a message. If you interrupt the meeting between him and Dr. Morse...”

“I'll have to make sure I'm not seen with Hawkeye. The bow is a giveaway.”

“I'll use a gun,” he says. “Easier to hide than a quiver.”

“I don't anticipate problems,” Natasha says. “This should be straightforward. Hill has us touching down hours before his assumed flight. I know what kind of places he stays at, and I made a list of likely places. We can't figure out his hotel plans, right?”

“Right,” Maria says, finally sitting down and picking up her coffee thermos. It's her eighth today. Before her, Clint never met anyone who drunk more coffee than him.

“His hotel will be in the best part of town and just far enough from the meeting place that no one will probably look there. I'll hang around the area. Bobbi shouldn't be seen by him before the meeting. He doesn't seem to recognize Clint, so he'll be okay. Actually,” Natasha adds slowly, “I think I should be seen with Hawkeye. Not close enough for Alexei to make a move. Just close enough for him to get jealous. No direct contact and maybe I won't even acknowledge he's there. I don't suppose Fury will be nice enough to give us a mission there if there's anything?”

“I'll ask him,” Maria says. “He might. This is a big problem on a lot of levels. Dr. Morse, did you look at the files from the Red Room?”

“Yeah, but there's nothing useful in there. I'm hoping not only to get Shostakov but for him to lead us to the Red Room. Natasha doesn't remember where it is, and we should have the files.”

“That's the dream,” Maria tells her. “But that will require you not being in our sights at all times.”

“I'll survive.”

–

Catania has nicer weather, which makes everything worth it in Clint's eyes. He's sick of winter, having spent half of it close to the North Pole. 

Bobbi stays in their hotel, preparing for the mission and the possibility that she'll need to make a trip to Russia. He and Natasha wander around the area they assume Alexei will be around. Fury had been willing to give them a mission to work, but there was nothing in Catania, so they made do with a quick assassination in a nearby town. They were both seen, both their distinctive weapons used, and the network of spies with Russian ties in the nearby area would let Alexei know. He must have chosen this area because of them, Natasha thinks. It makes sense. Quick allies, should he need them.

On day two of wandering around, Natasha reaches up and pets Clint's face. It's a gesture he immediately recognizes as both possessive and a warning. From the other side of the market square, he sees Shostakov's twisted face. Without thinking, Clint turns his face into Natasha's hand and presses a kiss to her palm while entwining his other hand with hers. Shostakov's face goes red, and they leave quickly. 

On day three, four hours before Shostakov's meeting with Bobbi, Clint somehow ends up making out with Natasha against a wall. Less to piss Shostakov off and more to hide their faces from someone they once did a job for. They don't want to see him, and judging by their last meeting with him some nine years ago, he doesn't want to see them. But it has the added bonus of pissing off Shostakov to a ridiculous degree. 

It just makes Clint feel weird. Natasha is a fantastic kisser, and he won't deny there's always been an attraction between them. But kissing her has always felt like a dangerous game he won't win, and even though there's something a bit softer with her nowadays, that hasn't changed. Not to mention, with Bobbi so close and no real reason for the kiss, he feels like a cheater.

Bobbi, on the other hand, just laughs when he tells her about it. It is, after all, a mission, and they occasionally have to kiss and have sex with other people on missions, and they have always been okay with that. Besides, it's likely she'll end up having sex with Shostakov anyway. 

Natasha finds this strange, he learns while they linger in the restaurant patio across from Shostakov's meeting place. The meeting place seems to be a coffee shop, where Bobbi orders espresso and strawberry shaped marzipan and waits in a window seat. “She's probably going to have sex with my husband and I don't know how I feel about that,” Natasha says as she picks at her risotto. 

“Be glad it's not you?”

“I suppose.” 

Clint shoves his plate away and gulps down some sparkling water. Wine would be better, but they're working, and he's still getting disgruntled looks from Bobbi and Natasha anytime he even mentions drugs or alcohol. “She's not gonna like it, you know.”

“I know. It's just odd. I used to love Alexei.”

“That's an emotion,” he says, clutching his chest in feigned shock. “Have we progressed to you admitting you have them?”

She kicks his shin. “Alexei's here.”

He notices them but says nothing. His mouth twists, and Natasha turns into a femme fatale in a heartbeat, turning all her attention on Clint. Something both unnerving and arousing, with her bottom lip jutting out just enough to highlight its fullness, and her eyes peeking up through her lashes. In another world, he would probably lean across the table and kiss her, and the thought nearly sends him reeling back. He catches himself in time and manages to look into it, which he is, a little too much.

Shostakov disappears into the cafe and studies the tables. He's looking for a man, but there are only two in there, and both are native Italians. He studies the tables again. Bobbi looks up at him at the same time he looks to her, and she stands. Jorn had managed to come up with a decent description of the Red Guardian that would explain how she recognizes him, if asked. “Mr. Shostakov?” she asks calmly in a posh English accent. Upper Received Pronunciation, technically, although Clint's never seen anything outside of his linguistics books describe it as that. 

Bobbi's wearing a wire under her cheek to transmit and something akin to his mission grade hearing aids to receive. The six hour process wasn't pretty, and the thin scar along her ear and temple is covered with makeup, but it was the only way to keep something on her at all times. She claimed she wasn't in pain but Clint didn't see how she couldn't be. It was an invasive, last minute procedure, and the Demerol must have worn off halfway across the ocean. 

They follow her conversation. It goes as Natasha suspects—Shostakov is skeptical of her, then interested in her, then invites her back to his hotel. They follow, and Clint thinks he and Natasha can both agree listening to their spouses have sex with each other is the most bizarre experience of their lives. But it's over soon enough (too soon, really, and Natasha mutters something that sounds an awful lot like “he's such a selfish lover”) and Shostakov moves back into the business side of things. When it's clear Bobbi can answer all the questions correctly, he asks her if she can move to Russia immediately. She says, “Only if you pay the moving fees,” and he agrees to that easily enough.

As they head back to their hotel to prepare to follow them, Natasha says, “This was an aberrant day, and I never want to repeat it.”

“I'm not that bad of a kisser,” Clint jokes.


	7. Part Seven: Bobbi

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think we're gonna wind down this story and make it a series. (Not a long series though, I don't think). Enjoy!

LATE WINTER/EARLY SPRING 2003

When Shostakov is not muttering about wayward redheaded wives or the amount of dust and decay in the Red Room's facilities or the bug-eaten, yellowed papers that she has to be careful not to crumble, Bobbi can see why Natasha fell in love with him. He's not unattractive, with dark hair and dark eyes and a powerful build, and he can be attentive and charming, when he wants to be. He reminds Bobbi of her father in some ways and the men she dated patterned after him—just a little condescending to women yet great lovers of their bodies, confused when women didn't like that, a little too emotionally detached, and somewhat obsessed with the desire to be viewed as powerful. 

She still prefers Clint. His emotions run high and his feelings deep, but he has always been respectful and affectionate. There is no resentment for her intelligence or ability to tough it out no matter what—in fact he seems to want emulate that, from time to time. Clint possesses too many issues and not enough time to deal with them, and his own personal resiliency gets mired by his inability to think when faced with something he'd rather forget. She manages to shove everything aside until the job is done, and then she lets herself handle the feelings it wells up. Clint possesses the all too human tendency to react rather than think, and that has a habit of causing issues with everything from missions to their marriage.

But at least Clint's never been afraid to compliment her and he's never twisted her words when she's talked about a male colleague. Bobbi spends most of her first three weeks at the Red Room's moldering facilities just trying not to stick a knife in Shostakov's balls. He still hasn't allowed her access to all the files, anyway, and they all really wanted those files. Her only consolations are the comments made through her implanted comm—Natasha and Clint banter frequently, sometimes with heavy innuendo and a sexual tension she feels through the comm (and has no idea how to handle, so she leaves it be), there are Clint's sweet reassurances about the mission and gentle reminders that Bobbi can't kill Shostakov just yet, and Natasha's suggestions on how to really rile up Shostakov, as if Bobbi needs much help there. Only Hill keeps it strictly business, perhaps because Clint and Natasha rarely do. Hill answers her spoken musings, double checks formulas, transcripts the formulas she says out loud, and asks other SHIELD scientists for a second opinion. 

On week four, Bobbi posits that the old school chemicals, some of which have since been declared or have become severely restricted, were instrumental to the initial success of the Red Room but likely brought about the downfall as well. The body can get used to foreign things in it, or it can be fooled into thinking something out of place actually belongs, but eventually things start to go haywire. The booster shots they were given while in the metal containers didn't work forever. 

Week five, Shostakov finally gives her access to the rest of the papers, acting as though he's amazed she got this far. Natasha suggests kicking him in the balls, but Bobbi just plays coy and flirty, much to both women's disappointment. Kicking him in the balls would have made the whole mission a lot better. On week five, she also in a nearby town for a few hours for hugs and sympathy from Clint, a bottle of vodka from Natasha, and new information from Hill. It seems Shostakov is trying to drag the old crowd back into the fray, and they don't know who the old crowd is. Clint and Natasha will take them down—she just has to make sure they can be lured to the Red Room with the promise of a new scientist to take over. Easy enough—the formulas aren't difficult. And it's not like she has to give them working versions. Hopefully she won't have to give them any versions if Clint and Natasha do their jobs quickly.

On week six, Bobbi comes to the conclusion that it's amazing her work hasn't suffered because of her thrice daily cocktail of decongestant, antihistamine, and cough suppressant, with the occasional pain reliever added in as needed. The Red Room is full of rotting wood, rusted steel, green copper, mildewing bathrooms, and layers of caked on dust. The room she works in has a hole in the wall boarded over with moldering, perpetually damp wood, and between that and the dusty boxes of files and tech crowding the room, she never feels like she can breathe.

On week seven, Shostakov finally decides that cleaning out this place should be a priority. He hires a group of youngish women from the nearby town, and they learn very quickly to avoid being alone with him and to not ask questions. Reconstruction will have to happen, so they clean what they can. When they're done, he begins to rip down the parts that can't be fixed. Having no consideration, he also rips down the moldering wall in her work room, leaving her exposed to the cold air for far too long.

Week eight starts with her waking up to a fever. She bundles herself up best she can, drinks a pot of tea in the questionably clean kitchen—the cleaning ladies needed more than three days to actually clean it—takes her drug cocktail, and tells Shostakov she needs to go into town to work if he's going to do this. He, surprisingly, lets her, and she finds a hotel room that's neither too close nor too far from her team. 

That night, Clint brings her some cough drops and pets her hair as she gulps down another cup of tea in a desperate attempt to soothe her throat. He tells her the first of Shostakov's allies have arrived and that Natasha's interrogation of him revealed that only about ten people would answer Shostakov's call—he hadn't made himself popular with the Red Room crowd, it seems. They would do it happily and willingly if Natasha were at the helm, and the man tried to persuade her even, but generally they aren't interested in Shostakov since he couldn't deliver his wife back home. In a tone that sounds equal parts awed and horrified, Clint tells her that Natasha ripped the man's throat out with her bare teeth.

He's gone when she wakes up, but Shostakov is there, drinking out of her vodka bottle. “My other men have not made it yet,” he tells her. “I'll stay here with you.”

She gets better by week nine and decides not to question his frequent comments on his allies coming “soon” lest he get suspicious, and on week ten, she finally gets the capture order from Hill. “Fury wants to interrogate him first,” Hill says in her brisk no nonsense voice. “We have reason to believe he's involved in other illegal activities, none of which Fury deemed it necessary to share.”

“Kick him in the balls! You won't regret it,” Natasha says with more enthusiasm than Bobbi's ever heard from her.

Bobbi kicks off week eleven by throwing Shostakov through a rotted wall, kicking him in the balls, and putting him in full body restraints. “That was very therapeutic,” she tells Natasha, who just smirks and hands her a cup of warm honeyed mead.

–

Two days after they arrive in New York, Bobbi files for her vacation and drags Clint to Los Angeles, where they own an over the top home that has a twice monthly cleaning service, a freestanding marble bathtub, and a wine cellar that never lacks in wine thanks to the wine tours she likes to go on. Clint does hire a cleaning service for their New York home—neither of them are interested in going grocery shopping, doing laundry, or tackling three months' worth of dust—but Bobbi still wants a change of scenery. And a long soak in the bathtub with a bottle of wine and her chamomile scented bubble bath she forgot to take back to New York with her last time.

Their LA house is heavily comprised of vintage rugs, leather chairs, and velvet curtains. The kitchen, unlike the one in their New York house, is large enough to comfortably cook in, which Clint appreciates, but it's decorated with various mismatched tiles. Bobbi had bought the house from the family of the woman who owned this house for seventy of her ninety years on earth, and they hadn't had the budget to fix the house. The woman had been known for never making a decision on anything, and she had allegedly had those tiles up for several years, promising to make a choice “one of these days.” She died in her sleep three days after her ninetieth birthday, never having made that choice.

The kitchen walls are tiled with the sea-green, white, gold, and about eight different patterns. The rest of the kitchen is no better, but that's Bobbi's fault. She hated decorating a house, so the plates were a jumble of seventy-five cent plastic plates from the grocery store, differently patterned plates from sets that were now incomplete due to the occasional fight or dish-washing incident, and plates hand-painted with little blue and yellow ducks wearing bonnets and marching happily along the edge. They never used these plates because they didn't want to have to deal with washing them, but the old woman's family hadn't wanted them, so Bobbi bought them as well.

Bobbi's favorite room is the bathroom, which is about as big as their bedroom in New York. One of the walls in covered in a mosaic of the sea blues and greens, and the high ceiling has a stained glass dome depicting dolphins. It has room for both the tub, a glass-walled shower decorated with colorful cartoon-like fish, two brown leather chairs, a rack of shelves to hold extra towels and soap, his-and-her sinks, and long marble vanity. The vanity Bobbi could do without, but it bothered her mother that her daughter had one and she didn't, so Bobbi left it there because there are some things you never grow out of. 

Bobbi makes a beeline for the tub as soon as she drags in her suitcase. Over her shoulder, she asks Clint to bring her a bottle of wine and a glass and ignores his eye roll.

“This is nice,” she tells him when he finally brings the wine.

“Don't drink the whole thing before you eat,” he warns her as he leaves. Clint has been never been comfortable lounging in a tub, or she would try to convince him to join her. He'd rather be cooking in this house.

An hour and a half a bottle of wine later, Bobbi towels herself off, finds a floral print sundress in her closet—the last time she came here, it was with her mother in a trip she felt it politic to agree to—and follows the scent of roasting lamb to the kitchen. “Was I gone long enough for you to unpack, go to the store, and start cooking?”

“I ordered a grocery delivery for today when you said you wanted to come. There's some stuff on the living room table.”

“Are you in a bad mood?”

Clint looks up from the pan, blinks at her and says, “No. Why would I be?”

“I don't know. You've been quiet since we touched down in New York. Is there something wrong?”

He shrugs a little, looks back down at the pan. “I've been thinking of Natasha.”

She wilts a little and forces herself to stay calm. “Do we need to have this conversation again?”

“Not like that. She's leaving soon, I think. I never worked level one missions, you remember? I didn't realize Fury was testing her by giving us missions in any level between hers and mine. Gashi and Shostakov were way above her clearance, but she was involved whether she wanted to be or not. Fury's taking this as a 'good enough' and phasing her out two months earlier than planned. Now that we have the Red Room records, she'll finish her deprogramming and go through the exit interviews.”

“You can still see her.”

“She's not interested in seeing me. She asked for a security job in Europe.”

“I'm sorry.”

Clint shrugs. “I was expecting it. I just thought I'd have a couple more months to get used to it.”

“You can argue against her in her exits.”

“What would I say? She can't be trusted? I don't wanna do that to her.”

“I don't know what you would say.” She places a hand on his back. “I'm sorry. I know you want her to be your partner and friend.”

“I'll be okay.”

“I know you're used to disappointment and good at shrugging it off, but that doesn't mean you're not allowed to be upset.”

“I don't want to talk about this with you.”

“Why not?” she asks, unduly hurt.

“Because… Damn it.” He turns off the stove, spins on his heels, and paces several laps around the room. She remains where she is. “Damn it, Bobbi. Why the hell did I do this to myself? I should have let Fury kill her.”

“I think that's an overreaction,” she says calmly. “And you would have hated yourself if you let any harm come to her.”

“I keep thinking I can save her, and I can't even save—Why the hell do I think she needs saving?”

“I don't know. She doesn't need saving. She needs human ties.”

“I guess I thought I could give her that. I've always been the person she hated the least.”

“She's loved before,” Bobbi reminds him. “Shostakov. A girl named Yelena in the Red Room—her file said they implanted her false love as a reward to Natasha, or maybe as a reason to keep her tied to the Red Room when they feared she was no longer under their control. They didn't have proof, so they gave her what she wanted instead as a means of control. She's been in love. Keep that in mind—she _loved_ them, you're the person she _hated_ the least.”

“I kinda of thought she liked me.”

“You two want to fuck each other into next week. That's not the same as friendship.”

“Don't bring that up too. I already feel guilty enough. I jerked off to thoughts of her twice already.”

Bobbi draws him to her. “As long as your hands stay off her, we're good. It's normal. We're married, not dead. There are other attractive people around. I'm just saying she's not the sort of person who stops to consider other people. She might be one day, but right now she's not. If you don't want to cause problems during her exits and you don't want to go behind her back, maybe you can ask her if she'll stay the next two months for your sake.”

“I don't think Fury will let her.”

“He might not, but you can always ask if you secure her permission. I don't think she's trying to hurt you, if that's any consolation.”

He buries his face in her shoulder and nods. After a few moments, he moves away and says, “I need to finish the sauce for the lamb.”

Bobbi takes the hint and leaves him be. She takes the rest of her bottle of wine to the living room, where Clint has set out an array of food already—a thin soup with rice and tofu pieces, tortilla chips and salsa, crackers and herb goat cheese, and pre-packaged cheese tortellini that's been tossed with grilled mushrooms and white wine. There's also his usual array of olives, sliced salami, and lettuce wedges that have been covered in ranch and broiled. 

They've unfortunately hosted too many dinner parties, both undercover and as Adaline Morse's long suffering daughter and quietly amused son-in-law. It's one of many reasons Bobbi doesn't bother going home anymore. But it's been sort of ingrained in Clint by now, thanks to her mother's badgering, and if they're not in their too small, too cramped New York kitchen, then he serves food like this. She's always hated her mother's constant badgering but it's never been worse than at the beginning of her marriage. Her mother had wanted to retrain Clint like he was a dog, and amusement and curiosity about how other people lived made him obey. Eventually though, they both got sick of wasting their vacation time playing house with her mother, but some things never went away, including Clint's unhelpful ability to create a good buffet table. 

By the time he brings the lamb chops in, she's eaten half the tortellini, most of the crackers and goat cheese, and three bowls of soup, and she's two glasses into her second bottle of wine. Her face is warm, and the living room is starting to look perfectly fine, which she knows is a lie. The living room is a disaster of turquoise and gold velvet brocade curtains, a brown leather couch and matching recliner that's scratched and faded with age, glittering gold wallpaper, a moth eaten rug once patterned in aquamarine and teal, and a variety of chipped wood shelves. It's an eyesore when she's sober. She kept meaning to do something with it, but she stays here once a year at most and she doesn't want to waste her vacation remodeling a house.

“I don't think I could be an interior designer. I wouldn't have any patience for putting a room together,” she adds over his quickly smothered laugh. “Why try to match everything? Can you just throw some stuff in a room and be done with it?”

“Some people don't like that,” he tells her, lips quirked in amusement. “Your mother would scream and faint.”

“ _Swoon_. Fainting is for common vulgar women not ladies.”

“Did your mom get all her ideas out of a hundred year old etiquette book?”

“Probably. Even my grandparents never believed half that shit. Wine?”

Clint pries the bottle from her hand instead of letting her pour him a glass. “How's the soup? I didn't have any soy sauce. The stuff in the fridge smelled rancid and I didn't order any.”

“The soup was fine. Do you want some tortellini before I eat it all?”

“Have it.”

She dishes herself out some and adds a couple lamb chops on top. “Did you come to any conclusions about your issue with Natasha?”

“Nope. I think I'm gonna let it go. She doesn't want to stay. I shouldn't try to make her stay.”

“When did you find out she was doing her exits?”

“The night you went out to dinner with Annabelle. Maria told me. Fury considered Shostakov a job well done and reason enough to trust her so… Fury was asking me questions about Natasha and I didn't know why. I technically gave my part of her exit interviews, and I didn't even know it. By the time we get back, she'll probably already be gone.”

“I'm sure she'll at least say goodbye.”

Clint looks dejected but he says, “I guess. But we fought all the time in Russia. Hill had to pull us apart once.”

“Why?”

“I guess she didn't want us to kill each other.”

“ _Clint._ ”

“She asked about Barney that time.”

“What did she want to know?”

“Whether or not I forgave him.”

“Did you?”

“No. He left a few messages on our phone. He sent a check for all the money we gave him. I think he's trying to mend whatever fences he can. It's not helping. It's kind of making me hate him more. I told him to give me some space.” He puts his plate down. “I never asked you what you thought about the whole thing with Barney.”

Right now, she's finding it hard to feel much of anything other than the flush from the wine and the bone deep relaxation that makes her feel like she's sliding off her chair. If she makes it the rest of the night without throwing up, she'll have a headache in the morning. “He didn't betray me. But I talked to him every day while Natasha was searching for you. I was miserable, and he should have figured out we didn't have the information yet. We know he used to be a part of the criminal underworld so no one would have questioned how he got the information. He might not have thought of that, but he should have.”

“Maria thinks I had an easier life from nineteen onward.”

“Prison wasn't easy for him. They didn't offer him much of a plea bargain for turning in his bosses. I talked to a contact in the FBI. She told me they wanted to wait to recruit until they saw what he did after prison. He was struggling, we know that. That's why we were helping him. They waited a year to step in and recruit him. It was a game, essentially. I'm curious as to where they thought he was getting the money from. George Williamson didn't know about you. From what I understand he thought Barney made up a brother when he mentioned you because you didn't exist. I imagine everything made sense when he found out you worked for SHIELD. Barney never shared that.”

“You're pretty coherent for someone so drunk.”

“I am not drunk!”

–

Bobbi wakes up to sunlight streaming through the windows and her head throbbing, and she immediately wishes their four-poster bed's canopy isn't the soft blue silk chiffon she found for sale. It's too thin to do much other than look pretty.

She sits under the cold shower spray for a few minutes, washes down expired aspirin with tap water, and follows the scent of coffee to the kitchen. She stops and blinks, but Hill and Natasha are still there when she opens her eyes.

Natasha bounces out of her chair with all the enthusiasm of a puppy and squeezes Bobbi's arms. “She's happy,” Hill says drily. “As of five o'clock yesterday she is no longer an agent of SHIELD.”

“I'm going to Denmark,” Natasha exclaims. “I _love_ Denmark!”

Bobbi winces at the loudness of her voice. Clint comes behind Natasha and gently pushes her off to the side. “Bobbi was indulging in her wine cellar last night. Maybe we should pour some coffee in her first.”

Bobbi lets him lead her to the coffeemaker. “You look strained,” she whispers to him as he pours her coffee for her. “When did they show up?”

“About an hour ago. Maria's apologized about eighty times already. Natasha's supposed to officially check out with me before she flies out of LA.”

“It would have been faster for her to fly out of New York.”

“She's going on SHIELD airlines.”

“Are you okay?”

“I thought someone would at least tell me my partner was leaving.” He turns and walks to the fridge. She follows.

“Maybe they assumed you knew.”

“We're out of cream,” he says at a normal volume. “I forgot to buy that. I need to make a stop at the corner market. I'll be back in ten.”

Natasha watches him leave with a frown. “He doesn't seem happy.”

Bobbi settles on a half truth. “No one told him they were exiting you.”

Natasha turns to Hill. “I thought you did.”

“Yes, but I was the first person to tell him. Coulson was supposed to.”

“They don't along.”

“I know that, but I assumed Agent Coulson would do his job regardless. I already put in a complaint. It was not my job to handle it.”

“Nothing will happen,” Bobbi says as she settles at the table. “Coulson's Fury's best friend.”

“I will complain to the World Security Council if I have to. Fury is a good director but if he insists on keeping Coulson, then he should ensure Coulson will do his job.”

“Coulson doesn't have problems with anyone else. Just Clint. I think part of it was Clint not letting Coulson take him under his wing, to be honest. Coulson needs to be liked, but Clint wasn't having any of his father figure act.”

“I still don't care. It was his job. Want some tea? Romanoff brought about eighty tea tins with her. This one is strawberry lemonade black tea. It's not that bad. The caffeine will help some before Barton gets back. We also have some bakery stuff warming up in the oven.”

Bobbi accepts a cup and takes long slow sips. She was afraid the lemon would upset her stomach but the tea goes down nice and mild, and she's done with the cup and starting to feel better by the time the oven beeps. Hill and Natasha had brought fresh bread, chocolate crème filled croissants, and sausage and egg muffins. Clint comes back just as they finished dividing the food among four plates. He drops the cream in front of Bobbi and puts whatever else he got away.

“Coulson was supposed to tell you about Romanoff,” Hill says. “Dr. Morse said no one told you they were exiting her. That's why, if you need to know.”

“Fuck Coulson,” Clint says from behind the refrigerator door. 

“Hill said she put in a complaint against him,” Natasha offers. “I didn't know either. They kind of sprung it on me.”

Clint takes a moment to pour himself another cup of coffee. “I hope you'll stay in touch.”

“I already told you I wouldn't.”

–

Bobbi wakes up at three in the morning to the smell of something cooking. Clint's side of the bed is cold. She sighs and get out of bed, peeking into the spare room to check on Hill and Natasha. They're both sleeping peacefully, so she heads to the kitchen and takes in Clint's cooking. Homemade broth and marinara simmering on the stove, vegetables on the chopping board, and something that looks like pork is marinating on the counter next to the slow cooker. “I thought your usual ways of de-stressing were sex and training.”

“We don't have a gym here,” he answers without turning around. “And you were asleep.”

“Clint, come sit down.”

“I need to… put the stuff in the slow cooker.”

“Clint.”

He sighs and spins around. “I'm a mess.”

“You always have been,” she says, aiming for lightheartedness but hitting something more like 'quietly uncomfortable truth.' “If she means that much to you, why don't you tell her how much she's hurting you?”

“While you and Hill were at the museum, I told her that I would miss her and I'd like it if she stayed in touch. She just went quiet for a couple minutes and said that wasn't a good idea.”

Bobbi runs a hand through her hair and winces when she hits a tangle. _That's_ what she forgot to do after her shower last night—brush her hair. She'd been distracted by Hill's revelation while they were at the museum—that Hill's mother died giving birth to her and her father blamed his child rather than realize no one was to blame for freezing cold temperatures and snow that made it difficult for ambulances to get through—and she was distracted by Clint's increasingly mopey silence. She'd showered as quickly as she could and went back to falsely cheery banter with Hill. “I don't know how to help you,” she says quietly. “I never do. Your suicide attempt, Barney, Natasha. I wish there was something I could do.”

“Barney and I will figure it out. We always do. And Natasha will leave and I'll get over it eventually. I'll always be okay as long as you're here.”

“That's a heavy burden to bear.”

“I don't mean it to be. If you want to leave, leave. I'll figure it out if I have to. If you die… we know the risks. I never really thought you'd love me, and I'm grateful for everyday.”

“Don't say things like that, okay? You're amazing, and everyone deserves to be loved. I'm sorry I'm the only one who ever felt that you're worth the world. I haven't always been a good wife.”

“You're awake at three in the morning to help your husband deal with his issues over his partner, who he wants to fuck, leaving. I think that may qualify you for wife of the year.”

“Well when you put it like that...”

“I'm sorry,” he says sadly. “I'm not trying to hurt you, and I'm really not interested in the reality of sleeping with a woman who slits men's throats when they come. I'm not interested in ending up powerless underneath her.” He tosses the knife in his hand to the counter. “Natasha resents me for taking her power away from her when I brought her to SHIELD. She resents me lying to her for seven years, and she hates herself for believing me. But I resent her for three years of bullshit and lies. I'm pissed about how many times I was left holding the bag for whatever she did, even if I wasn't working with her at the time. I'm pissed about being tortured and having every bone in both arms broken because I was with her at the time. I hate how she played me and how I fell for it, and I hate how I still couldn't kill her.”

“You might not have felt like that if you had other friends.”

“I _tried_.”

“I'm not blaming you. I know what for the longest time the guys weren't great to you, and the girls weren't too much better. For what it's worth, I'm sorry for my part in that.”

Clint sinks down into a chair and looks up at her, looking confused and dejected. “It was never your fault. You didn't want any attention from those guys and I don't know what was even up with the women.”

She laughs. “The women all loved you, Clint. I got you first.”

“ _Seriously_? The whole reason no one wanted to be my friend was because of our marriage… are we in high school? Isn't this what people say high school is like?”

“High school movies say that. I didn't find that to be true. And I hope no one was married in high school.”

“That's not what I meant.”

“Maybe when we get back, you can try to make some real friends. You don't have to make them at SHIELD. I know it's easiest to explain your job, but maybe you should join a book club or something. You work, and you come home to me, and everyone from me to your therapists think that's unhealthy.”

“I guess.”

–

Natasha wakes up at eight in the morning and joins Bobbi in the kitchen. She's wearing a black and gray floral print dress with huge ruffles on the skirt, a leather jacket, and running shoes, and her red curls are frizzed up and restrained by a huge clip. There are bags under her eyes, and she goes straight for the coffee instead of making herself a pot of tea. “Good morning,” Bobbi says gently. “There's oatmeal on the stove if you want some.”

Natasha looks at the pot. Clint hadn't gone to bed at all last night, it seemed, even after their talk. When Bobbi woke up, there was a note on her nightstand telling her he'd be back before Hill and Natasha left and that he'd made oatmeal and there was a breakfast casserole staying warm in the oven. “Or there's a breakfast bake in the oven,” she adds when Natasha doesn't seem to move. “It's basically French toast in casserole form.”

Natasha slowly takes the dish out of the oven, finds a plate, and scoops some up. “Can I ask you something, Bobbi?”

“Of course.”

“I was wondering,” Natasha begins uncertainly, “if you think you would be able to undo anything the Red Room did to us.”

“I can try, but it's not a guarantee. The only person to test any solutions on would be you and that's a risk I'm not sure you want to take. We can test it on your blood first, but that won't be the best way. Did you have something you wanted to undo specifically?”

“I want to age normally. I've been nineteen for fifty years.”

“Why ask this now as you're leaving?”

“They didn't tell me I was leaving. I'm happy to leave, I really am, but I thought I had two more months and I… I asked a couple of scientists on base that I knew had access to the Red Room records. They seemed to think it was an inevitable failure.”

“Nothing untested is a guaranteed failure in science,” Bobbi reassures her. “But I can't go behind Fury's back.”

“I know. I was hoping you could ask him. He was grateful to get rid of me.”

–

Bobbi's not sure why she's surprised Hill has some issues—agents of SHIELD tend to be a level of fucked up not seen by the FBI and CIA. No one joins an exclusive international agency that practically requires you to be out of contact with any civilians without having a few issues. But she doesn't know much about Hill. Clint met her while she was in the military and acted as his liaison when they found evidence someone was stealing from the munitions warehouse on her base. A couple months later, she was medically discharged for what would have been a permanent leg injury. Clint talked her into joining while she was in the hospital, and while SHIELD managed to mend her leg, if it ever breaks again, she'll walk with a dragging limp. Bobbi never learned much else about her, so the somber revelation of why Hill joined the military and then SHIELD throws her off for a while. It's the first thing that crosses her mind when Hill joins her in the living room, but she manages not to say anything about it.

“Romanoff would like me to tell you she's going to take a nap,” Hill says. “She's been having a hard time of it this week.”

“I'm sure the deprogramming wasn't fun.”

“No, but it only lasted a couple hours. That's not the problem.”

Bobbi looks up in surprise. “She asked me to see if I could undo the anti-aging serum, but other than that, she seems pretty happy.”

Hill's mouth twists. “Without Barton there, people have started harassing her. She wouldn't go to Fury or McKay because she only had the remainder of the exit interviews to go through, but they've done everything from childish antics to sexual harassment. I kept track of the names. I'll file the report the second I drop her off in Denmark. If they did it to her, there's no saying they won't do it again.”

“I agree. Natasha knows that. Why won't she do anything?”

“I think she feels like it's just her presence and that it stopped when she left. That may be true—a lot of people were unhappy she was there. You can ask Melinda May. She's been trying to help. I know you're friends with her. Maybe she'll tell you what's going on. She wasn't sharing much with me.”

–

“Your dime,” is how Melinda answers her phone when Bobbi calls.

“I didn't know you were an operating service now, Mel.”

“When are you getting your pretty ass home, Morse? I can't beat all the macho idiot junior agents into submission on my own.”

“Somehow, I think you can.”

“I _could_ but then I wouldn't have time for my job.”

“I wanted to ask you about Natasha. Hill mentioned that people weren't being very nice. She's leaving in an hour, and Hill wants to send in a complaint report about it as soon as she drops Natasha off, but Natasha's under the impression it was just over her presence and it's over now.”

“Yes and no. People are still being assholes even though she's gone. They're keeping it hidden from Fury and McKay and anyone who might tell. From what I've heard it's everything from nasty pictures to mocking what she was like during her imprisonment. My understanding is that anything is fair game until the moment Barton steps foot back on base.”

“Thanks.”

“Tell Hill to text me when she wants to send the report. I'll add my support to it.”

–

“We're leaving with Hill and Natasha,” Bobbi tells Clint when they get home. “Something urgent on base. Don't ask. Just trust me. I've arranged for a plane with the LA base. We'll have to fly ourselves. I already repacked us.”

Clint repeats a couple of her words. She knows that this means that she was either too quiet or too fast and he's double checking what he heard. She nods to him and signs, _We should be on base. I have something to ask Fury that would be better done in person._ When he shrugs his agreement, she adds, _Eat lunch first. We'll take the rest with us._

In an hour, they're at the LA base, saying their goodbyes to Natasha and inviting Hill over when she gets back to New York. They take off, and Clint and Bobbi find their own plane, suffer through the checks that their pilot training is up to date—Clint actually has a pilot's license too, having found flying fun—and finally leave an hour after Natasha and Hill.

Flying a plane has never much interested Bobbi, who spent a good half of her childhood terrified of heights. She takes the co-pilot chair and spends a majority of the flight reminiscing out loud about the first flight she took at age seven. It was to a beauty pageant to show off the ballet her mother made her learn. Ballet wasn't Bobbi's strong point—when it came to dance, she excelled at ballroom dancing and nothing else—but that didn't matter to her mother. Ballet was blood, sweat, and tears and completely ladylike at the same time, apparently, so off Bobbi went to classes and off she went to the beauty pageant. She threw up on the plane twice, and it was only an hour long flight.

They touch down at the New York base just before seven in the evening and Melinda meets them on the rooftop. “I haven't told him,” Bobbi tells her, quietly and before Clint extracts himself from the plane. “I was kind of hoping I didn't have to.”

“As long as he's here, he'll never know.”

“This isn't a long-term solution.”

“I know. I submitted an introductory report. McKay will be on the lookout for Hill's.”

“Thank you.”

“No problem. No one deserves that bullshit. I've been trying to get a hold of the pictures they're showing around—Hey, Barton.”

“Hey, Mel. Is anyone going to tell me why we're back so soon?”

“Your vacation will be comped, don't worry. We mostly needed Bobbi.”

Clint looks like he doesn't really believe her. “I'll just—go do something.”

“Fury wants to talk to you about Romanoff, if you want to knock on his door.”

–

Bobbi waits for Clint to leave Fury's office and head into the cafeteria. She feels guilty for hiding, but she knows that Clint won't be happy to learn that Natasha's asking something of Bobbi while completely ignoring him, so she's going to try to hide it as long as she can, damn the consequences.

“Your husband just left,” Fury tells her without looking up when she enters his office.

“I know. I wanted to talk to you.”

“I'll talk to Coulson. Hill already read him a riot act.”

“I know that too.”

“What do want then, Morse?”

“Natasha asked me if there was any way I could restart her aging process.”

Fury finally looks up from the screen. “Can you?”

“I wouldn't know until I do or don't.”

“Is this imperative? How long will the Red Room serum last if it's not undone?”

“It's working as they expected it would. Following their calculations, if the girls weren't killed, they would live to be about four hundred years old.”

“I need to talk to the World Security Council about this.”

–

Barney calls her at their house number three minutes after Clint leaves. “You just missed him,” she tells him.

“He won't talk to me anyway.”

Bobbi sits down at the kitchen table and cradles the phone between her cheek and shoulder as she tries to zip up her boots without breaking the zipper. She adds, _buy a new pair of boots_ to her mental to-do list and says, “I hate that Barton brother dejection tone.”

“I was kind of hoping you didn't hate me too.”

“If Clint wants to cut you out of his life, I'll stand by him. But no, I don't hate you.”

“I really didn't think—it was sort of this great thing, you know? I've never done anything with the FBI really, and my brother is off being the world's most prolific assassin. Bringing in Gashi was supposed to be my big break. I didn't think it through.”

“Clearly. How's it going with the FBI?”

It takes a beat for him to respond. “I'm on probation so not that great. I pissed off Nick Fury. No matter what Williamson says, he doesn't want to cross him.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Yeah, well, I think we both know it's my fault.”

“True, but I'm still sorry.”

“You're being awfully nice about this.”

“I don't think anyone's called me nice before you two. Has it occurred to you that you might not know what nice is?”

He huffs a laugh. “Well, we already knew that.”

“I think if you two had a decent childhood and parental figures that weren't criminals, you both would have done a lot better. But you play the hand you're dealt. You both made bad choices to survive. SHIELD trained most of Clint's bad decisions out of him. You're still making them.”

“I don't know if we had any good choices if we wanted to survive. But you're right about now. I didn't think it through. I figured Clint would be fine. I never thought he'd feel betrayed. I didn't really think about him getting hurt. The probation is a pain in the ass, but the real problem is I can't focus.”

“He's not going to forgive you overnight.”

“I know. I was hoping he might give me five minutes.”

“I'll let him know you called. I'm going to be gone for a while. Stay out of trouble, will you? That's not too much to ask from a Barton is it?”

–

Clint says maybe he'll call Barney next week. He won't, and all three of them know it.

–

 

The project is approved but with major caveats that make Bobbi uncomfortable. She'll have to work at the SHIELD base in Sweden, it'll be a need-to-know classified mission—so she can't tell Clint about it, although that works for her—and her lab will be in lock down mode. No one comes in or comes out without previous approval, and those working on the project can't leave the base.

“Why all these restrictions?” she asks Fury.

But he only shrugs. “Ask the World Security Council.”

“Did you get Hill's report?”

“The agents will be dealt with.”

The agents are all fired two days later. The entire base is sullen and quiet, edging around Clint with trepidation. Melinda May finally tells Clint why they wanted him back, leaving out that Bobbi already knew, and the anger radiating off him leaves the entire base feeling off-kilter. One could rely on Clint Barton to be friendly and engaged and kind, and when they suddenly can't, everything takes a turn for the worse.

None of the agents whose names weren't in Hill's report are stupid enough to point out that they too were involved, but Clint knows they exist. Some of the agents who knew stuff was happening but didn't say anything feel guilty. People who genuinely didn't know are also angry and upset. Most of the agents involved were male. Several of the pictures of Natasha going around were violent and sexual, and the female agents are currently a level of pissed off not seen before at SHIELD. Operations grind to a stuttering halt, and the base is temporarily shut down, which hasn't been done in thirty years, not since they were attacked and had to rebuild. The therapists take on the task of trying to mend fences but the trust needed to run missions has been pulverized and won't be remade.

The night before Bobbi leaves for Sweden, Clint tells her he's asked to be transferred to LA while she's gone. “There's no reason to stay in New York if you're not here,” he says. “Maybe the change of pace will be nice. It's sunnier, and there's lots of people I haven't met. Hill will be my new partner. She's agreed to it, as long as I let her stay in the house with me. If you don't mind.”

“Of course not. I'm sorry you can't handle being on the base right now.”

“It's not your fault. You knew, didn't you? That's why you wanted me to go back.”

“Yeah. I just didn't know how to tell you.”

“What are you doing in Sweden?”

“I can't tell you that. The price I have to pay for doing it. You probably won't like the answer anyway.”

“It has to do with Natasha and the Red Room serums, doesn't it?”

“I can neither confirm nor deny that.”

–

She misses Clint, of course she does. She always does when they're apart. But the locked down lab takes her usual longing to a whole new level. Maybe it's the prison-like feel of the setup—a small wing where everyone working on the projects eats, sleeps, and works. There's little time for exercise, and her allowed daily phone calls are three, two of which she uses on Clint. The third is reserved for whichever one of her friends she wants to call. Clint is working missions anyway; it doesn't make sense to leave two similar messages, let alone three.

Food is limited to sandwiches, soup, fresh fruit, and the occasional traditional Swedish dish. The sandwiches are mostly turkey or ham, the soup is usually chicken noodle, and the fruit is mostly apples and grapes. By the end of week two, Bobbi is already sick of the food, but she can't leave the base. She isn't allowed to spar with other agents, so her exercise is limited.

“This is prison,” she tells Fury when he calls to see how she's doing. As he's director of SHIELD, his call isn't considered one of her three allowed calls. 

“It's supposed to be. That's what locked down labs are for—people we have to convince to work with us.”

“Why is _my_ lab like that?”

“We said there was a traitor and we never found 'em. The Council's being paranoid. Sorry, Morse, I tried.”

“They don't think I'm the traitor, do they?”

“No. They were afraid someone would try to sabotage the project so they sent you away.”

“How's the therapy on base going?”

“A lot faster now that most of the male agents are gone.”

“What?”

“We weren't getting anywhere so I brought in Peggy Carter. Had to fire a lot more people. She got confessions out of them in no time. We have some agents from other bases and we've got an incoming junior class of about thirty.”

“Bet Melinda is happy about that.”

“Most of these juniors aren't stupid enough to fight her. They were all warned what their predecessors were fired for. We don't allow mistreatment of female agents—you get enough of that on the field. They understood, which is more than I can say about most of the ones we fired.”

“It's hard to trust a guy who laughs about an image of a victim of sexual abuse being brutally raped.”

“I get it. They're all gone, and they're not likely to get jobs again anytime soon.”

–

“I'm leaving in the morning,” Clint tells her when she calls him that night. “Maria and I are going to Denmark.” When she doesn't immediately respond, he adds, “Don't worry. I know I can't look for Natasha.”

“What's happening in Denmark?”

“A political assassination made with an arrow, amazingly. Not mine, not Barney's so guess who gets to find out?”

“You talked to Barney?”

“Fury talked to Williamson.”

She leaves that one alone. “Any ideas?”

“Fury's worried it's Trickshot. It might be, but he's set his sights a lot higher than he has before.”

“Or maybe he has an axe to grind with the guy. Did Fury tell you why he thought it was Trickshot?”

“No, but there's three known criminals who use bows, and two of us have gone into SHIELD and the FBI.”

“Fair enough. I'm dying of boredom here. Get me something interesting from Denmark, please?”

“Sure, doll. Anything in particular?”

“Not really. It'll be weird knowing you're so close and I can't see you.”

“We've done it before. If all goes well, I'll be back within a week anyway.”

“How's the living arrangement going?”

“Maria thinks I'm messy but other than it's pretty good. She's not a good cook and I'm not good at laundry so we've split up chores pretty well.”

“I'm glad it's working out. How's the LA base?”

“It's nice. I've only spent a couple days on base but everyone's been really welcoming. I'm going to a sports bar with some of the guys tonight.”

“Have fun.”

The time runs out ten minutes later, and Bobbi allows herself a moment of despondency before heading back to the lab.


	8. Part Eight: Natasha

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I have no excuse. I totally forgot about finishing this chapter. Enjoy!

Natasha was first in Denmark in the mid-sixties when Mod fashion was all the rage and Vera wore it like it was the only thing that existed. Natasha herself found go-go boots ridiculous and thought no one looked good in them, and the short dresses were still too long on her. But Vera was tall enough the dresses looked fine on her, and her only qualm with go-go boots was the color—white, barely any paler than Vera's ghost-like skin. Sixties fashion had been Vera's favorite fashion they'd lived through, something Vera proclaimed frequently, as if she hadn't been born at the end of the thirties and only lived through two decades of fashion. Natasha never paid much attention to fashion, but she knew the fifties' penchant for cocktail dresses and feminine styles was much loved by the other Red Room girls. This led to some mocking, but only some, because Vera was dangerous and she was Natasha's, and you didn't mess with Natasha's things. She had been in the Red Room the longest, and she was their unbeatable best and their most loyal supporter.

Natasha wonders what Vera would have thought of her betrayal. Lucya wouldn't have cared much—she might even have run away with her. She had never been fully cured of her tendency to talk to about doing what was right and following your instincts; she was just sure the Red Room was the right thing. But if Natasha had said, “I'm not sure we're doing the right thing and I want to leave,” well, Lucya might have been with her. Although once it was said out loud, it was likely they never would have managed to leave. But Vera had a righteous zeal for the Red Room's mission, and she would have likely turned Natasha in if she mentioned it. 

Come to think of it, Natasha muses as she walks home one day, she's not sure Vera loved her. They enjoyed having sex with each other, and there was some fondness and affection on Vera's part, but love required something Natasha wasn't sure Vera possessed. But she hadn't thought of that then. Then, she'd been relieved she wasn't being partnered with one of the younger, less experienced girls, who she would then have to save or kill for their mistakes. Hiding another body was always a waste of time, and it wasn't winter then, so there was no snow to help her.

She was happy to be with Vera for other reasons too—they had just started their little affair and were still high on the thrill of having nonviolent contact with each other—but emotion had never been her strong point. At the end of the day, she was more grateful for having someone experienced over Vera herself. They were sent there to kill a defector of some sort. KGB, Natasha always assumed, but when she left the Red Room, she learned they had a lot of allies, so it was just as likely someone who realized they were supporting the torture of little girls and left. 

They had knocked on the door to the man's house but it was opened by his trophy wife, a tiny slip of a woman with big china-doll eyes and a demeanor that was stupidly friendly. She let them in, gave them cups of tea, and gently asked what they were doing there. Vera was fantastic with knives, snapping people's necks, and disappearing into crowds, but subtle questioning was beyond her. Suitably disconcerted, the woman had reached for her husband's gun and… Vera had taken a mink coat that was draped over the couch. “Real fur is out,” Natasha told her as she burned the towel that she'd wiped her hands clean on. “They have fake stuff now.”

Vera wrinkled her nose. “Why would I want fake fur?”

“It's in fashion.”

Vera draped the mink coat over herself. No matter how small their victim had been, Vera was thinner still, and she swam in the fabric. “Fashions come and go,” she declared loftily.

“If anyone asks, you should tell them it's fake. Some people are going around and making a big fuss. You don't want to draw attention.”

“How do you learn these things, Natalia?” Vera asked as she kissed Natasha's nose. She liked to do that, Natasha remembers. She thought it strange the first time.

“I charm it out of shopkeepers.”

“I understand. If anyone asks, it's a good quality fake. Let's see where he might be.”

They found him in a hotel in downtown Copenhagen with a busty brunette wearing nothing but go-go boots. He didn't see them coming, and Natasha slit his throat. The brunette begged for her life, but in the end, Vera snapped her neck and left her broken body on the plush white carpet. “Don't you want a trophy?” Vera asked her. The Red Room let them keep trophies from their kills, things they wouldn't ordinarily be allowed to have. Natasha had a whole collection of them back in the Red Room, left behind when she fled and undoubtedly sold for money—a sapphire ring, a glittering diamond necklace, a first edition of a Jane Austen novel she never read, an antique teapot, a stained glass lamp, a signed copy of War and Peace, a priceless work of art, a silk cocktail dress embroidered with flowers with pearl centers, an expensive bottle of wine, a camera, a silver filigree pocket watch, an enameled hand mirror. But she didn't take anything that mission. She wrinkled her nose at the tacky clothing and told Vera it was fine and they needed to leave before anyone found them. Vera told her she worried too much and they'd slipped into the street just as they heard a terrified scream echo through the building.

“Whoever screamed has a great set of lungs,” Vera noted. “I wish I saw her face.”

“We would have been caught.”

“You don't think we could have killed anyone who came?”

That was Vera, at the end of it all. She liked the thrill of seeing her work discovered. It led to her death, at the turn of the decade. Natasha thinks it's just as well. Vera would have hated polyester.

“I think it would have attracted too much attention,” Natasha responded easily. Denmark didn't have the same anti-gay laws others did at the time, but she was still leery about slipping her hand into Vera's. Plenty of people hated them. That being said, women could get away with pretending to be friends, so Natasha chanced it and squeezed her hand. “You don't want to end up like Valeria, do you?”

Vera gripped her hand tightly, her face somehow going whiter. Valeria was a lovely little girl with dark hair and big blue eyes, but she had attracted too much attention and was subsequently killed in front of the other girls as an example. They'd tortured her first, of course. The Red Room kept the veneer of kindness as long as you didn't disappointment them. Natasha remembers Valeria as no older than twelve, her body battered, bones twisted at painfully wrong angles, her face dirty and tear-streaked. Her voice was hoarse as she begged, and they let her beg with a knife pressed to her throat. It dug in more and more, and she bled to death before they made it all the way across her neck. Natasha still remembers the horrible gurgling sound she made as she died. At the time, Natasha thought, _well she should have known better_ but now all she can manage is nausea and disgust.

Valeria _should_ have known better, but she was a new recruit, and the damage had been easily controlled. 

Her cell phone rings. Natasha starts and realizes she's been standing in front of a hotel for the last ten minutes. The same one she killed the defector and his mistress in. The same one she left with Vera, tentatively holding hands and using an innocent dead girl as an example. She jerks her phone out of her purse with more force than necessary and answers.

“Someone just killed Andres Friis,” her boss, Serena, says tightly. “With a bow and arrow. In full of view of cameras.” It's not like Serena to be so tense. A former military woman and a former communications expert for SHIELD, Serena had been in enough high tension situations to know it wasn't worth sweating the small stuff. Or even the big stuff. No mission plan survived first contact. Serena was a big believer in innovation and hard work but not guilt or blame.

“And?”

“No need to be so short with me, Romanoff. If it's Hawkeye, and it's a SHIELD mission, that's fine. If not, I need to know if someone's gonna come crawling around here. Nick told me you were Hawkeye's partner.”

“If it's Hawkeye, it's a SHIELD mission. He wouldn't go rogue. But he usually avoids cameras unless there's no other choice. If it's not, I don't know who it would be. His brother works for the FBI, but I'm under the impression he hasn't picked up a bow in ages. And all kills with a bow since he's been released from prison are Hawkeye's. There's their trainer, but I don't know much about him. I always got the impression he was strictly small town.”

“Could you look at the scene for me? I can't leave my daughter home alone. She'll probably set the house on fire.”

“Sure,” Natasha says as she stares up at the hotel. “Did it just happen? How did you find out?”

“One of our security guys was there. He didn't get in between in time. You have about an hour before they move the body.” And Serena hangs up. She's very much like Fury that way. Sometimes she forgets manners. To be fair, Natasha muses as she changes directions, the mission is always more important than manners. No one has died because the director didn't say goodbye to an agent. They have died because of precious wasted seconds.

The scene of the crime is a mess. People are screaming and crying, and there's a group of policemen trying to calm everyone down and herd them off. There's a medical team treating people for shock, and the media are already camping there, setting up cameras and shouting out questions. Natasha nods to her coworker, who she only vaguely recognizes as the man who asked her out her first week here, and he comes over to her. “Serena sent you here,” he says in accented Danish. As far as she can tell, he's Hungarian, but she isn't really sure. He's been living in Denmark for so long, his accent is only identifiable as Eastern European. “I couldn't stop it,” he adds with genuine shame. “I have never heard an arrow before.”

“It's a distinctive sound,” she agrees, “but it's not what you're trained to look for. Don't worry about it. Sometimes people die. It's unfortunate, but we're not deities. We're fallible.”

The last time Natasha was in Denmark, she gave this speech too. That time, she was just saying what needed to be said so Clint would fucking move already while internally rolling her eyes. This time she means it. Friis may have been young, and he was well liked, even by Queen Margrethe, but he was a politician and a businessman with less savory rivals. 

“I know. It does not make it easier.”

“I know someone who kills using arrows,” she says. “I'm going to see if it's one of his. If it is, he works for the government” —Natasha intentionally does not mention what government— “and he has a good moral code. If it's not him, we have a bigger problem on our hands.”

He nods. “How will you get in there?”

“I'll sneak around. I have some experience. If I caught, I'll flirt my way out of trouble.”

He nods again. His suit is splashed with blood. “Go home,” she says gently. “Have a drink, and hope for the best.”

–

“The arrow didn't have any of the high-tech accoutrements of a SHIELD-made arrow, and it didn't have a 'h' imprinted on it,” Natasha tells Serena the next morning. “It was also made of different materials than the ones Clint makes for himself. The only distinctive markings was the tip. It was green and pink from what I could tell. It was hard to see with the blood, and I couldn't get any closer.”

“So you really don't think it's Hawkeye.”

Natasha hesitates. It really never crossed her mind that it could be, even as she was rattling off information to Serena. Friis's life was an open book, and Natasha had investigated him before. He didn't have anything truly bad in his past. Clint wouldn't kill him unless he did, SHIELD ordered or not. “I don't, no. But I think until we know for certain, it would be foolish to dismiss the possibility completely.”

Serena snorts. “Spoken like a true spy.” She taps her fingers against her glass desk. Her nails are bright orange. It contrasts nicely with her dark brown skin. “It gets stranger. Hans Pederson requested covert protection this morning. He was a business rival of Friis'. He's about sixty, and you've probably seen him on talk shows and news segments. He's definitely dirty. No one gets that rich with clean hands. But he has his own security. I can't help but wonder why.”

“Have you done a current background check?”

“Money wise, he's solid. He has no family. Dead parents, only child, never been married. No known kids. He has discreet liaisons at an upscale brothel when the mood strikes. His businesses are all operating in the black.”

“I've seen him in the news, but I don't know what kind of businesses he owns.”

“An organic farm, textile operations, something about reducing the use of fossil fuels. He also owns stock in a lot of major corporations worldwide. There's more. I can't remember them all, but Friis also owned an organic farm, and my understanding is that between him being in the public eye and his transparency, he was doing a lot better than Pederson.”

“I thought you said he was running all his businesses in the black.”

“Yes, but he was getting dangerously close to red. The profits are barely anymore than the costs, and they dipped down even further last month.”

“Is that a reason to kill Friis?”

“He seems genuinely worried about his safety. I don't see why he would hire us if he was involved. Maybe it's just bad timing, but my instincts are going haywi—” Her phone rings. She grabs it. “Tammin Security. Nick Fury, don't you dare take that tone with me. What do you mean what tone? You know that tone. I don't work for you, boy. Apology accepted.” Serena shoots a glance at Natasha. “Wanna say hi to your old fight buddy?” Serena rolls her eyes. “No, Romanoff hasn't driven me nuts yet. I like her. What's _that_ supposed to mean?”

Natasha is unsure what Serena and Fury's past is, but there's something about the way Serena talks about him—and to him—that makes her think it was a deeply personal relationship. A platonic soul mate or a forever sort of love, it didn't matter. It was deep and it didn't endure. 

“Huh,” Serena says. She glances at Natasha. Her face has shifted from annoyance to sternness, and Natasha wonders what Fury is saying. “Yes, we'll provide help for Hawkeye and Lieutenant Hill while they search for Friis's murderer.”

Natasha's heart stutters. She doesn't know if she wants to see them or not.

“I know how SHIELD works, Nick.” The impatient irritation is back. “You dragged me out of the military with you.”

It's been twenty five years since Fury's been in the military, at least, and it's been at least fifteen since Serena left SHIELD. 

“Goodbye to you too,” Serena mutters into the phone. She drops it back into the cradle. “I guess you were right, Widow. Hawkeye's been in LA, his brother is on probation on an FBI base, and they are operating under the assumption it's their former trainer. Buck Chisholm, also known as Trickshot. There's a strong possibility that Jacques Duquesne, aka the Swordsman, is with him. Fury said their colors are probably green and pink.”

“You didn't tell Fury about the arrow.”

“I figured you'd tell Hawkeye. They're already on their way. They'll land before lunch. I'm giving you Pederson. If he's hiding something about Friis's death, it'll be best for you to be the one working it.”

–

Hans Pederson has thinning blonde hair that seems too bright to be real, the beginnings of a belly, and an unfortunate fake tan that's leaning towards orange. She goes to visit him at an office in one of his textile operations. It's luxuriously decorated, and she's fairly certain it's hardly used. He offers her a cup of tea, which she declines, and gestures for her to sit. “If you don't mind, I would like some more information,” she tells him her best attempt at Danish. It's not her most well learned language. She knew it better once, but she didn't get the chance to speak it much before she moved here. She's getting better, but there's plenty of room for improvement. “You didn't tell Serena much other than you were getting threatened. Do you know this person's name or face?”

“Chisholm,” he says, and Natasha's heart sinks. She doesn't think her impression of Clint's former trainer being small town was wrong. When small town goes big, there's questions to be answered. Like how they got the money to do that. “I do not have a picture. He's American, graying, big arm muscles. Bad temper.” He hesitates but adds, “He's an archer.”

“How did he find you?”

“We had a business deal together. The terms were fulfilled, but he said they weren't.”

Not an answer, she thinks, but she doesn’t push. “Was there an actual contract or is it just your word against his?”

“It was a verbal contract.”

“Are you worried he killed Friis?”

“I am certain he did. I asked a friend in the government to look into it, but I was never given his real first name. He said to call him Buck. There were no men with that name. Plenty of men named Chisholm in the right age group, but nothing I knew could narrow that down.”

“Has he threatened death or ruin or something else?”

“Currently, death. He thinks I'll tell the police. But he has plenty of things he can ruin me with. Sometimes…. Some people don't understand that certain things need to be done in order to succeed. Things people outside of the business world may not understand.”

Corporate espionage, Natasha guesses. “Was Friis part of your business deal?”

He hesitates again.

“Whatever you say will remain between the security agency and you. But I need enough information to accurately assess the threat and how to handle it.”

“Yes. I asked Mr. Chisholm to look into Friis' business practices.”

“You asked for covert protection. What does that entail, in your opinion?”

“I have security in my home he cannot break. At my office, I'm more vulnerable and other people are around. My secretary is on maternity leave. I'd like you to take over the job. Escort me to and from the office. As a secretary, no one will question why you're there all day.”

“Okay. Do you want me to start now?”

–

Pederson's main office is a sleek glass and chrome style place with studded leather chairs, a rich red carpet, and white walls dotted with bookcases. She sits in a little desk outside of his door. The walls around her are glass too, but at least she has a door she can close. There's a curtain, but it's only there for looks; it doesn't actually close, he tells her. He walks her through the duties she'll need to fulfill as a secretary, and it seems mostly limited to answering phones, transferring calls, and sending diplomatic versions of the emails Pederson drafts. The rest of the work will be done by an actual secretary in a different area of the building. Natasha just needs to be pretending to work all day. 

She adds extra security to the outside of the building while feeling very leery about something she can't put her finger. She hopes it's just her inability to take anyone's word as truth, but she doesn't trust Pederson's version of events. He treated her to a lovely lunch in an expensive restaurant and was convincingly human, but she thinks he's too composed. When she called her boss, Serena told her he currently has ten businesses running. The farm may be losing money, but not enough to warrant wanting to kill Friis, especially as there are dozens more farms like that starting up. But, Serena added, she's heard some rumors that suggests it was Friis Pederson wanted Chisholm to spy on.

“I thought you weren't a spy,” Natasha responded.

“I have friends among spies. Agent Barton and Lieutenant Hill would like to speak to you. They'll meet you in your office at headquarters at seven. If he keeps you late, let us know.”

Natasha spends the rest of afternoon finding multiple nice ways to call someone a useless idiot. She can think of ten off the top of her head. In between that, she answers phone. No one wants to talk to Pederson directly, so they're all relieved when a secretary answers. Something was messed up in production, resulting in a half million Euro loss, and Pederson is on the rampage, which Natasha can understand. Half a million is a lot, even though it seems it could have been much worse. Pederson has been taking his own phone calls for the last week and yelling at everyone. 

In between her secretarial duties, she wonders how she should act around Clint. Hill won't care if Natasha chooses distant professionalism, but she doesn't want to hurt Clint. She misses him more than she thought she would, but she isn't sure she wants to be around him again. When she came to Denmark, she realized how vulnerable Clint made her feel simply by smiling at her. She wanted to trust him, wanted to make him number five on her list of confidantes—Lucya, Yelena, James, Alexei. But none of those worked out well in the end, and she can't see how Clint will end any better. Lucya died. Yelena and Alexei used her. And James was taken from her so brutally she hopes he is dead. She has not heard much from the Winter Soldier in years, and what she has heard has seemed like ghost stories or assassinations attributed to him because they didn't know who else to blame. Many of these stories lack an important detail—his metal arm. 

But, at the same time, Natasha has to admit she has been lonely. One of the many ways she failed the Red Room in the end. She likes to be around people, and distrusting them isn't an important problem. She needs people, needs to talk to someone, needs to sit in a room with someone and know she has someone when she needs them. Half the time she would say nothing at all. She watched Clint make arrows and fiddle with his attempts at knives, and she would drag him to artsy or foreign films. Clint tended to talk enough for both of them, anyway, although his conversation was limited to impersonal things, like a thirty minute recitation of the best margaritas in New York City or the best mashed potatoes in the areas surrounding his house. Or the more tolerable art galleries, cheap pizza or beer, non-agency shooting ranges, more interesting museums (Natasha will admit to being surprised he likes _any_ of them), best places to buy coffee beans, best places to get a coffee the times you aren't making it at home, and her personal favorite, places to buy both bullets and cheap vodka at the same time. She visited them all. The best, in her opinion, is run by an old Russian man named Vlad. He has a tattoo of a fighter plane on each arm, and he sold her a liter bottle of unlabeled genuine Russian vodka made in his cellar for three dollars. 

The vodka in Denmark is fine, but Natasha's social life is limited to a weekly dinner with Serena and the occasional clubbing night out with various coworkers who go to blow off steam at the end of a tough assignment. In her free time, she explores what's different from the last time she was in Copenhagen and reads murder mysteries and thrillers, trying to chase an elusive thrill. She did similar things in New York, but it isn't the same. In New York, or any other city in the world, she had Clint who would ask interested questions when she talked about what was different. In New York, she had Bobbi and Hill to discuss murder mysteries with, even if it was mostly done via emails, phone messages, and hasty conversations in the hallways of SHIELD between missions. Unfortunately, given that they were always working, the conversations tended to be, “I haven't found time to finish the book yet,” or, “Come on, _please_. Tell me who did it because I won't be able to read it for another month,” or, more frequently, “Don't tell me! I'm not done!”

She had been alone for so long. She'd spent the better part of fifteen years alone, throughout the second half of the eighties and all through the nineties, until Clint had slipped a sedative into her glass of wine and she woke up chained to a chair in a SHIELD safe house. “I'm sorry,” Clint told her, looking genuinely apologetic as he held a straw to her mouth. “You're too dangerous, Sofia. _Natalia_.” She choked on the water as he said her real name, a name she hadn't heard in so long. “I'm sorry, Natalia,” he repeated. “We can't let you go free.”

Natasha could think of nothing but revenge as he easily drug into a plane and put her in even more cuffs, as if the taser cuffs weren't enough, but the second he took her into Nick Fury's office, all she could think was, _It's finally over._

It wasn't, of course. She should have known it wasn't going to end with a bullet in her brain that day. Why send an assassin after her if he was just going to bring her back to be killed? But she wasn't thinking of that. She was thinking of Scorpio—Nick Fury—a man she'd fought a million and one times. He was one of maybe five people on this earth who could hold their own against her, and last time they'd met, before he was director, he promised, in the coldest tone she's ever received, to make sure she regrets ever being born. Either he forgot or Clint's immediate invoking on Clause 7.8.3 made him have to ignore that.

Still, in one of their private meetings while she was bargaining for amnesty, she had lost her temper, made a threat, and Fury had cocked his gun, pressed it to the underside of her jaw, and told her, “Just give me a reason, Widow, I beg you.”

Natasha didn't. She hadn't wanted to anymore.

Fury was a little disappointed.

–

Natasha arrives at her office at a quarter to seven. She goes through the process of making a pot of tea, using a burner plate to heat up the water. She figures Hill and Clint will appreciate caffeine, because they always appreciate caffeine, and because they likely have been awake for over a day unless they napped this afternoon. She sets some Earl Grey to steep, takes off her suit jacket, and opens the packet of digestive biscuits. They're all she has to snack on in the office. She closes the window curtains, turns on the lamp, and rifles up three chipped blue-and-gold mugs she bought from a resale shop in New York.

They arrive at seven on the dot. Clint makes no effort to look any different than he usually does—boots, jeans, a leather jacket over a t-shirt—but Hill wears a pantsuit. “Good evening, Romanoff,” she greets easily.

“Are you playing businesswoman?”

“I'm handling the police,” Hill says. “They're baffled but unhelpful. You'd think they've never seen an arrow before.”

“Well, you don't really see them nowadays. I have caffeine,” she says, holding up the teapot, “if you can take it tea form.”

“I take it any form,” Hill tells her. “I've been awake for thirty hours, and we have a stakeout tonight.”

Natasha pours her a cup and holds the teapot up to Clint. He shrugs, which she takes as a yes. As she fixes her own cup, she talks. “Pederson confirmed he was being threatened by a man named Buck Chisholm, who I've been informed is Trickshot. He says he hired Chisholm to look into Friis's business practices. It was fulfilled, but Chisholm is claiming it wasn't. I prodded Pederson some more when I took him home. He says Chisholm worked alone, and he saw no indication of a partner. Chisholm leaves phone messages in which he doesn't identify himself but promises retribution. He sounds like a 1930s film villain, only he doesn't have as nice of a voice as Bela Lugosi or Boris Karloff. Pederson is sure he killed Friis, and Chisholm is sure Pederson will turn him in.”

“That's all Pederson gave you?” Clint asked.

“He wasn't forthcoming. I'm not sure I trust his version of events. On the surface it sounds fine, but he doesn't seem afraid. I know he's been in the business world for over forty years and it can be terrible, but surely someone threatening to kill you warrants a little more fear?” Natasha refills all their cups. “Did you get anything useful?”

“No.” Clint sets his cup down and rises to pace around the room. “The police have no evidence beyond the arrow. No fingerprints, and they weren't keen to let us see it.”

“I saw it. Serena sent me to poke around without getting caught. She was worried it might be you. The arrow was made of a dark wood, not painted, and it had a metal tip that was painted green and pink. It seemed circus-y but you gave me the impression Trickshot was small town.”

Clint's mouth tightens. “Yeah, he was. I don't know where he'd've gotten the cash from. He was always a thief, but he wasn't that good a one. He spent all his money on beer and cheap cigarettes. I can't imagine him saving up enough to even afford a plane ticket here.” He pauses in front of the window and snorts. “He probably couldn't imagine me killing someone either.”

“Things change,” Hill says. “People change.”

“Not that much.”

“You're too young to be so cynical,” Natasha murmurs, aiming for humor that falls a little short. But Clint gives her a crooked attempt at a smile, and she feels like beaming. 

She needs more friends.

“Do we know if the Swordsman is in town?” Natasha asks briskly. “And are we going to assume they've become more dangerous or should we assume someone is backing them?”

“Do you think Pederson backed them?” Hill asks.

“I can believe he paid Chisholm a fair bit of money, but that doesn't explain how he found Chisholm in the first place. Is it possible Chisholm and his partner did some corporate espionage in the States? It might explain how he came to be here.”

“We have people looking, but so far there's nothing. As far as we know, Chisholm and Duquesne joined a new circus eight years ago and were thrown out for multiple accusations of theft. Duquesne served two years in prison and was released around the time you were brought to SHIELD. There's nothing on Chisholm since he was thrown from the other circus. His name isn't even on Duquesne's visitors' list. There were some rumors he used a different name but Barton didn't recognize any of the handwriting styles.”

“It's been a while,” Clint mutters defensively. “I couldn't read much anyway.”

“No one's blaming you. Even if you saw his writing everyday, it's been fifteen years,” Natasha says.

Hill continues as if no one interrupted her. “We're hoping to establish if Duquesne is here tonight. We haven't seen him so far, and there's no indication he's even in contact with Chisholm. We did find Chisholm, at least, and we've bugged him to death.”

“How is this being treated?”

“Bringing Friis's murderer to justice is important for the Danish government. Chisholm, and Duquesne if he's involved, will be turned over the police to stand trial here unless we can prove this an international problem. Barton's contacts tracked down some rumors that there were two circus-style thieves being paid to rig an explosion in order to make a statement. About what, we never figured out. Barton's under the impression that these guys will do anything to make money, even kill innocent people. I'm wondering if Friis's murder was meant to keep the government's attention away from questionable activities.”

“And he used Pederson to do it? Or do you think Pederson is on it?”

“Pederson owns a company that makes products that don't require fossil fuel to use. What's out can't be used to rig an explosion but there are several prototypes being tested over the next few weeks.”

“So you're thinking they're trying to get close to him. Why threaten him then?”

“Good question. They might be covering up for something.”

“Or Pederson is lying.”

“Or that,” Hill agrees. “If we get you some trackers and bugs, could you put them up around his office and home?”

–

Natasha spends most of her Saturday checking Pederson’s home and office security so she can plant the bugs. It’s the worst Saturday she’s had in months, but at least it gives her something to do instead of dwelling on Clint’s silence. Hill feeds Natasha information, got the bugs to her, takes Natasha’s information in turn. Clint, on the other hand, answered Hill’s phone two days while she was in the shower and abruptly told her Hill would call her back if it wasn’t urgent.

Last night, she had asked Hill if the proximity of his old trainers—who he clearly has some issues with it, even if neither Hill or Natasha knows what they are—is the source of his irritation. Hill blandly tells her that he’s been fine with her, and Natasha doesn’t miss the implication. So Clint is mad at her. For leaving, she assumes. Or maybe he’s glad she left and unhappy this mission has forced her back into his orbit. Either way, it’s disheartening.

And it was her own fault. She hadn’t been a very good friend to him while she was there. Once a month or so, she would feel the need to share something personal and then she would immediately panic and go back to the guise of friendly co-workers. It never worked as well as she hoped. She and Clint were born of the same fires, and they understood each other all too well, without anything being said. And Clint already knew things about her she hadn’t wanted to share—the burning of a hospital for a single person, the Red Room, all the things she did to survive. Her name, the blood on her hands, the bitterness that stirs in her heart whenever she does something for the first time or for the first time without a mission attached to it. 

He extended the olive branch and gave her the opportunity for a friend, and she hadn’t known what to do with it. So she did nothing at all, leaving it lingering between them. She didn’t say she didn’t want to be friends, because it would be a lie and she thinks the least she can do for him is not lie to him. She didn’t say she wanted to be friends because that wasn’t really the truth either. She thought she would leave SHIELD after a year, make new friends, meets new people, and start to live like a normal person, but either fate has other plans for her or she’s not capable of being normal. She has no friends, and her attempts at dating have been mostly limited to kissing pretty girls in the corners of dark bars. Even her weekly dinners with Serena have more to do with keeping on eye on her for SHIELD than genuine friendship. She knows Serena likes her, and she likes Serena, but Serena is a single parent with a teenage daughter and a business to run. Genuine friendship would need more time, more effort, and possibly more in common. And at the end of the day, Serena is her boss. Natasha’s not sure what the protocol is for being friends with your boss.

She should just suck it up, she thinks, and tell Clint that she missed him. He would forgive her. They might even try to stay in touch. And she wouldn’t mind trying to foist murder mysteries on him. She and Bobbi were constantly trying to.

Natasha nods to herself. If anyone notices, no one says. She tells Pederson she’s done and has made arrangements for things to be finished Monday and leaves. She heads straight for Clint and Hill’s hotel room. Hill answers the door with a yawn and lets her in. “The bugs are live.”

Natasha nods in acknowledgment. “It’s barely seven. How are you falling asleep?”

“I’ve been up for forty hours. You didn’t happen to bring caffeine, did you?”

From the other side of the room, Clint snorts. “You drank your body weight in coffee, Maria. I think the next level is injecting yourself with pure caffeine.”

“I’ll tell Fury to get the sci department on that. I’m going to get food then. Romanoff, you staying for dinner?”

“Sure.”

Hill pulls on her jacket and yawns her way out. Immediately, an awkward silence descends. Clint busies himself by reorganizing papers in a file folder. It doesn’t take more than a few seconds. On missions, Clint is clean. At home, when Bobbi is gone, their house gets overrun with things Clint puts off cleaning until later when he can’t stand it anymore. But on missions, Clint makes sure everything is organized so they can find things easily and not lose track of what they have. 

“I wanted to talk to you,” Natasha tells him after a moment. “You don’t seem happy with me.”

“I’m not unhappy with you.”

“I missed you.”

“Yeah, you know, I’m not sure I buy that.”

“I didn’t think I would,” she admits. “It’s okay if you’re mad. I just didn’t want this to be a huge gap between us.”

“You should have thought of that before you put an ocean between us.”

“How’s New York?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been in LA.”

“Why?”

He glances over at her and seems to have some sort of conversation with himself. “Maria told Bobbi about the bullying, so she brought me back to base to keep things to a minimum while reports were filed. Turns out, keeping things hidden on base isn’t that easy. You don’t want to know what they found. Fury ended up firing most of the guys. But I couldn’t stand being there so I did a temp transfer to LA. Maria came with me.”

“How about Bobbi?”

“She’s working in a locked down lab next door in Sweden. I guess it has something to do with the Red Room serums.”

“I thought they weren’t doing anything with the serums.”

“They weren’t.”

The tone of his voice reminds her of her request. “Oh. I asked Bobbi to see if she could get them to work on something. I didn’t want to be nineteen forever.”

“I can understand that.” 

“So where do we go from here?”

“Where do you want to go from here?”

“Leaving it my hands is always a bad decision.”

“But it is _your_ decision. I already told you I wanted to stay in contact.”

“Okay, we’ll stay in contact.”

Clint says nothing. Natasha searches for something to say, but before she can come up with something, Hill returns and plops a bag on the table. “It’s some sort of pork dish,” she tells them. “Everything okay?”

“I forgive too easily,” Clint mutters, and he comes to sit next to Natasha.

–

Chisholm bursts into Pederson’s office on Monday morning, and Natasha manages to look startled. The receptionist on the first floor already called her to tell her there was an angry American coming, and the security cameras showed up him coming up, but it wouldn’t be wise to sound like she’s used to angry. She’s supposed to be new at this. It would be even less wise to tip him off considering the first thing Chisholm does is stop short and eye her as if she’s familiar.

Natasha wishes she’d bleached her hair into a strawberry blonde when she cut it. She learned a long time ago that she wasn’t nearly as recognizable when she wasn’t a redhead. It should have been part of her disguise, but red hair was never the same after it was dyed. Even the Red Room’s serums hadn’t helped with that. Over the last two decades or so, she’s kept her hair a vivid red, and it mostly doesn’t need dye anymore. She hadn’t wanted to ruin her hair again, but then, she didn’t think anyone would recognize her. She can see the word “widow” forming on Chishom’s lips.

“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t break the door, sir,” she says coolly in Danish to keep her cover. “May I help you?”

Chisholm blinks up at her. She takes in his graying hair and weathered face and thinks in a normal situation she would dismiss him as not a threat. He struggles to respond to her in Danish, so she takes pity on her ears and says in English, “Don’t break the doors. How may I help you?”

He doesn’t say the words “Black Widow” out loud but she can see him thinking them. “Tell Pederson I need to see him.”

“May I have your name?”

“He can see me out here.”

Natasha goes into Pederson’s office, making sure to close the door firmly behind her. “Mr. Chisholm is here. He’s already frightened your receptionist and nearly broken the glass.”

“Let him in. Stay with us.”

As if he needed to ask.

Chisholm starts the meeting with a vague threat. It seems someone let the police know about him, and he was being hunted. But he seems to believe that it wasn’t Pederson. Natasha can only assume it was Clint, but no one told her they were going to set the police on him. She debates the possibility that someone else provided the information while they chatter in circles about their “business.” Finally, Chisholm offers something up that supports the idea of using Pederson’s prototypes to build a bomb of some sort. Given how little Pederson’s being told, Natasha decides to operate under the assumption he’ll be left with the ruined reputation and the blame afterward. Chisholm spins a good story with just enough information to make it seem possible and thought out. 

Natasha takes plenty of notes. Most of them will go to Clint and Hill. The notes for Pederson don’t take up much paper, something he questions her about later. “Mr. Chisholm didn’t tell you that much,” she explains. “How does he know so much about your prototypes anyway?”

Pederson doesn’t answer the question.

–

On Wednesday, Chisholm and Duquesne arrive at noon. This time there is an appointment in place, and Natasha lets Clint know they’ll be coming. She tells Pederson she advises against getting more involved with them and reminds him he hired her to protect him from them. He corrects her, saying he didn’t know Chisholm had a partner. He accepts and ignores her advice.

Natasha is shut out of this meeting. She lets Hill know she’ll have to rely on microphones and cameras Natasha’s hidden in the room and goes back to work. Until she hears crashing glass. She runs into Pederson’s office, gun in hand, and realizes there’s nothing she can do. An arrow has been shot into the office, whooshed past Pederson’s ear, and landed in Chisholm’s arm. He rips it out and glares down at it. The ‘H’ Clint uses to impress his own arrows can’t be any bigger. It wraps around the arrow shaft in vivid purple, like a taunt, and the tip is the same purple, striped with deep blue. 

Duquesne takes the arrow from Chisholm and studies it with a sneer. “Clint,” he spits out contemptuously. “Great. Just what we needed. The brat.”

Pederson eyes her like he’s asking a question. She debates shrugging, but Duquesne has already turned to her. “The Black Widow,” he says. “Buck here wasn’t so sure yesterday, but I saw you up in Milan. You slit Cameron’s throat.”

Cameron Littleton, an Englishman with even less scruples than her, had been her last kill before being taken prisoner by Clint. He spent three hours trying to get away from her, but she finally cornered him and slit his throat in a little alcove in the main ballroom before she slipped off into the night. 

She hadn’t seen Duquesne there, but then, she wasn’t paying that much attention to the random people invited. There were world-class generals, oily politicians, people who got rich through questionable means, and underworld crime bosses. Duquesne wouldn’t have registered with her. There was no reason for him to. He wasn’t famous or infamous, and he possessed no traits that would have made her think he was a threat. He’s tall, true, but his body isn’t nearly as in shape as Chisholm’s is, and without his sneer, he looks like any man making the ungraceful transition from middle age to old age.

With the sneer though, he looks sinister. Add in his first name association with a man like Littleton, and Natasha ashamedly admits to herself she misjudged him. But all she says is, “If I had more time, he would have bled to death slowly.”

Duquesne seems to like that comment. Pederson just rises slowly, looking confused. “I used to be a spy,” she tells him. “I’m retired, and I came to Denmark to work security because no one would look for me here. I traded information to SHIELD in return for amnesty and protection.”

Pederson nods his understanding. Natasha plucks the arrow from Duquesne’s hand. “I’m assuming this is Hawkeye. He’s an assassin. It wasn’t meant to kill. The arrow is too blunt.” She studies it. The tip is alarming blunt and she wonders if part of it broke off, but Chisholm’s arm barely has any blood on it. Just blunt then, meant as a tiny injury. The same sort of arrow, she thinks, he used on her during her attempt to escape when he captured her. It hit her back and caused a spasm she couldn’t move through. By the time it stopped hurting enough for her to move, Clint was already handcuffing her. “Why is he coming after you two? He wasn’t trying to get Mr. Pederson. It would have been an easy shot, and Hawkeye doesn’t miss.”

Duquesne rips the arrow from her hand and glares. “Clint’s a brat. Who knows? Thought he could do better than us because he never had to try.”

Natasha just raises an eyebrow. “I advise you to leave before Hawkeye shoots another arrow through the window.”

“Why?”

“My job is to protect Mr. Pederson, and clearly your presence is dangerous.”

“Let’s try again tonight,” Chisholm tells Pederson. “You have somewhere private we can meet?”

“Come to my house,” Pederson says. “Miss Romanoff will give you the address.”

–

The night meeting barely goes any better. Duquesne and Chisholm spin a yarn that Pederson falls for all while Natasha takes notes with increasing discomfort. Pederson didn’t become so prolific by being stupid, but he doesn’t seem to be thinking this through. She briefly wonders again if he’s in on it, if their conversation is a code she doesn’t know. They have no evidence to support that, but they have no evidence to the contrary either. 

As the meeting wraps down, just as she starts to think this could have gone worse, Duquesne turns to her and says, “You know Clint.”

She keeps her face blank. “Who?”

“Hawkeye,” he says with a roll of his eyes. “You were his partner.”

“Spies don’t have partners, Mr. Duquesne,” she says coolly. “I have, however, made temporary alliances with him, yes.”

“I don’t suppose you’d call him, would ya?”

“You suppose correctly,” she says, her tone cooling down even more. “Contacting an assassin would violate my contract with SHIELD, and it would put my life at risk. A bodyguard whose own life is at risk is a useless bodyguard.”

He shrugs off her icy tone. “It never hurts to ask.”

“What would you need him for anyway? He’s an assassin. You’re altering a prototype.”

“Insurance,” is all Duquesne says, and it sets her on edge.

–

“I should shoot him,” Clint tells her, throwing something against the wall. Again. Natasha sighs and pours herself another glass of Champagne. She already regrets coming to his hotel room tonight. Hill is out, working with the police to find whoever gave Chisholm up to them since it wasn’t Clint, and Natasha is… babysitting, honestly. Over the past four days, Duquesne and Chisholm have brought up Clint and even Barney so often it’s put everyone on high alert. After fifteen years of not seeing each other and not wanting to, the sudden interest feels sinister. 

And the way it makes Clint feel renders him relatively useless to the mission. Unfortunately, Chisholm contacted someone who contacted Jorn who then called Clint. Natasha and Clint have been using Jorn as a contact for over a decade now, and he’s sufficiently frightened of them, so he holds off on letting Chisholm’s contact know how to get in touch with Clint. But Clint will need to come face to face with his trainers sooner or later since they won’t stop looking for him. So he stays in Copenhagen, shifting between hotels under false names, driving Hill up the wall and being a nuisance to the investigation.

Not that the investigation is going anywhere. They hit a brick wall two days ago, and nothing they’ve tried made a dent in it.

“You can’t kill him,” she says patiently. “Which ‘him’ are we talking about anyway? Duquesne is an asshole, but I think you hate Chisholm more.”

He throws whatever’s in his hand at the wall again. She thinks it’s a rubber ball meant to be a toy for children, but it hits the wall and bounces back too quickly for her to see it, and it’s small enough Clint’s hand engulfs it completely when he catches it. “I hate them both.”

“Come over here. Have a glass of Champagne.”

“I hate Champagne.”

“I hate whiny brats.”

He throws the ball at her head. It’s too fast for her to catch it and she ducks too slowly, hindered by the copious amounts of alcohol she’s consumed today, and it smacks right in the center of her forehead. “ _Ow._ It’s like an inch in diameter. How does it weigh so much?” As she rubs her head, Clint rolls his eyes, jerks the bottle of Champagne out of the ice bucket, and wraps the plastic bag around the ice. He throws it to her and she fumbles for it and lays it over her forehead, which is starting to thump. “Give me the bottle. It tastes horrible at room temperature.”

“You don’t need any more alcohol.”

“Well then you drink it.”

He gulps it down in one long swallow. Natasha is momentarily distracted by his throat, but then the full crime hits her. “What’s wrong with you? That’s a hundred Euro bottle of Champagne! You _savor_ it!”

“It’s fermented grapes, Natasha. And the room service is coming out of my paycheck.”

“Heathen.”

“Snob.”

“Oh, good, I’m just in time to interrupt the childish fighting,” Hill says as she enters the room. “I have news. It’s useless news, but it’s news.”

Clint gestures for her to continue.

“The police have a witness that placed someone matching Chisholm’s appearance in the area of the Friis shooting. No recollection of a bow. They just thought he looked shady.”

“He _does_ look shady,” Clint mutters. 

“The Danish police looked into Chisholm as a suspect, but they don’t seem to think he’s a viable one. They are operating under the impression it was a Danish political dissident or a contract killer.”

“Is he?” Natasha asks Clint curiously.

“No, he’s not Danish.”

She throws the rubber ball at him but he’s sober so he just catches midair two inches from his face.

“I’ve never known Buck to be a killer,” he says, but it sounds like a lie. “Until now, I guess.”

“Well, he’s either killed before or he’s a psychopath. He lined up a shot and killed a man half his age in front of the man’s children. In front of cameras and a whole slew of people,” Hill says. “No hesitation, seemingly no remorse. And now he’s involved in questionable activities and asking after an assassin.”

“It may just be that he trained Clint,” Natasha points out. “He knows the name and the skill.”

“I don’t believe that. Do you?”

“No.”

“What does he need with an assassin? What does he need with Barney? Insurance can mean anything. We’re at a dead end. Nothing’s coming in. We have the same amount of information as we started out with.”

“Only one thing left to do,” Natasha muses. She meets Hill’s eyes. Hill’s jaw clenches and she sharply nods once. They both turn their gaze on Clint. After a moment, he looks up at them. 

“I’ll tell Jorn to set up the meeting,” Clint concedes mournfully.

–

Clint sets up the meeting for that Friday. Just him, his two former trainers, his former partner, and her security assignment at a private dining room in one of the most expensive restaurants in Copenhagen. Natasha spends an inordinate amount of time dressing up. She tells herself it's because she wants to live up to the Black Widow name, but really, she just needs something to do with her hands. Nerves explode like fireworks in her stomach. She doesn’t like not knowing what she’s getting in to. 

“How do I look?” she asks her mirror self. Curve hugging emerald green gown, check. Ridiculously elaborate updo, check. Diamond necklace and bracelet, emerald earrings, and a blood red ruby ring, check. High heels that make her look short instead of tiny, check. Racing heart, check. She loops a faux fur shawl around her shoulders, spares a thought for what Vera would think (approval, surely, just for the shawl itself), gives in to the brief desire to make a face at her reflection, and heads off.

Pederson smiles at her, gives her a few compliments as she takes his arm, and spends the rest of the ride to the restaurant stiff and silent. His instincts are screaming that something is off, but he can't put his finger on it. Natasha isn’t sure why he thinks something is wrong, and yet again, she wonders if he’s as innocent in this as he seems.

Clint is alone when they arrive. He's wearing a deep navy suit that's stretched to the max with his muscular arms folded over his chest and an expression that makes him look like a suitably terrifying assassin. His eyes flick over her. “You almost look good, Widow. Pity I can't figure out where the bloodstains are,” he greets her with a venomous bite.

This familiar territory, where they trade barbs without compunction, as if the other wasn’t still essentially human, made up their first ten years of partnership. It’s what people expect from them, so it is the game they’ve chosen to play tonight. She smiles with false sweetness and says, “It's brand new. I'm saving all the best places for your blood.”

“I'm flattered,” he says, his voice low and sensual and his tone a cross between amused and malicious. It's an arousing sound, and Natasha wonders what's wrong with her. But before she can come up with a response that doesn't involve her trying to take his clothes off, he turns his attention to Pederson and introduces himself solely as, “Clint.” Pederson shakes his hand solemnly. They don't get much further than that when Chisholm and Duquesne sweep through the door in tacky, unfitted suits. 

For a moment, there's a hint of vulnerability in Clint's face. She wonders, not for the first time, what the full story is. Hill says Clint never talked about it to the therapists. Natasha would bet that only Bobbi knew what had happened between them. It didn't seem like the other circus acts knew judging by the files on them. When SHIELD talked to them, they'd given no indication they'd realized something was wrong between Clint and Chisholm, but they'd given every indication that the idea of sweet little Clint Barton being an assassin was about as likely as pigs doing ballet.

Natasha had been surprised that wasn't already a circus act.

But the vulnerability disappears in a split second, leaving behind a sharp-edged, cruelly lethal assassin with eyes that don't miss a thing and a tongue that cuts as brutally as a blade. The change happens only his dark gray eyes and in the set of his mouth, but it's impossible to miss. He smiles ferociously at his former trainers and sits down without a word. Natasha sinks down next to him without thinking but tells Pederson she won't let him sit with a known assassin. Chisholm settles onto Pederson's other side, and Duquesne sits down next to his friend. There's an empty chair between Duquesne and Clint, and both of them seem to prefer it like that.

Natasha loops her hand in Clint's under the table and squeezes gently. His thumb chafes at her wrist, and she feels a frisson of heat idly make its way up her veins. Just when she's starting to feel both too warm and like a complete idiot, Chisholm breaks the tense silence to make a joke about Clint having his hand on a knife. Clint drops her hand with a final stroke, lifts both his hands above the table, smiles a terrible knife-like smile, and says caustically, “I didn't realize I'd been cast into the role of betrayer. You can have it back, Buck. I don't think I play it as well.”

The tension deepens. Natasha flags the waitress and orders one of every appetizer, two bottles of red wine, and a bottle of Chardonnay. She spares a thought for Bobbi, who would hate the abundance of fish based food—spicy shrimp, smoked salmon rolls, gravlax, open faced sandwiches with mackerel, caviar, and stuffed eggs with anchovies. It all looks good to her, but then she likes fish. And she likes anything that will give them something to do with their hands that isn't throwing a punch or wielding a weapon. 

“Are we going to sit like this all night?” she asks once the waitress has brought two of the bottles and they've poured them out. “Mr. Duquesne, Mr. Chisholm, you requested this meeting with Hawkeye. Why don't you tell him why?”

Clint's thigh is tense against hers. She rests her hand on it, trying to keep her hand low enough. Her fingers want to crawl up, though, so she digs them gently into the muscle. Both his hands are resting under the table, so he covers her fingers with his own. “Yeah, Buck,” he says. “Tell me what harebrained scheme you concocted in your drunken haze.”

Duquesne interrupts. “It was _my_ idea, brat.”

Clint turns his head to him. The look on his face is nothing short of hateful promise, and it makes Duquesne stop short in shock, but Natasha can't focus on anything but Clint's increasingly tense leg and the way his fingers bite into her hand. She'll have bruises in the morning. His jaw clenches too, and underneath the viciousness that isn't wholly fake, she can see the discomfort and hurt of a broken little boy who became the monster in the dark alley because that was his only hope for survival. 

Without a word, Clint turns his head back to Trickshot. Chisholm shifts uncomfortably, the weaker link. “We need some help with an environmental project.”

Clint's expression clearly tells them what he thinks of that—and that he doesn't believe them. 

“Mr. Pederson's company is building electrical machines that can reduce the use of fossil fuels in the home,” Duquesne says smoothly, carefully holding back his bite. “We're concerned about the safety of the project. Mr. Friis,” he pronounces it incorrectly, “was a business rival of Mr. Pederson's and was killed.”

“You killed him, Buck. I saw your arrow. That's why I came here. To find out who was encroaching on my territory. So try again.” Clint doesn't acknowledge Duquesne as the one who had spoken, making the man's mouth tighten and his eyes take on a murderous edge.

“I did, but only because I was threatened first. I thought it came from him. But I kept receiving threats.”

Pederson seems fine with this lie.

Clint shifts his attention to her. “And what's your stake in this, Widow?”

“I'm security.”

“Out of men to strangle with your thighs?”

“Retired,” she snaps back even as she curls her thumb with his. “I received amnesty in exchange for information from SHIELD.”

“I didn't know Nick Fury played those games.”

“What can I say? I'm special.”

“We need help,” Chisholm says when it becomes clear that Clint has no response for her other than an arched, mocking eyebrow. “And we'd like yours, kiddo. You're… we know you.”

“No,” Clint says flatly. “You don't.”

“And we'd like Barney,” Chisholm continues as if he hadn't spoke. Natasha meets Clint's eyes, and she sees a frisson of fear. Whether it's because he's worried about Barney's safety or because he doesn't want to be in Barney's presence is anyone's guess, but it's clear he's silently asking her if she knew anything about it. She traces the word _no_ on his palm. 

“I didn't agree,” Clint says.

“Come on, Clint. It won't be much. And it'll be three million—I guess we can knock it up to five for you both.”

“Why should I do anything for you?” 

Natasha feels like the question is a genuine one, hidden under the facade of unyielding assassin. 

“Fuck, kid,” Duquesne says. “So we didn't part on the best terms. So you're some big shot killer now—using skills we taught you. That doesn't mean—”

“I didn't need to be taught to hit a mark,” Clint says, matter-of-fact, with no trace of the usual cockiness in this often stated sentiment.

Duquesne looks like he'd dearly like to smack him. Chisholm jumps in soothingly, “We're asking for some help, Clint. Nothing more. Three million, three weeks. Five if you can get Barney to come along—”

“Two and half mil, in that case,” Clint mutters in a tone that makes it seem like they’re swaying him.

“And all you need to do is make sure no one interrupts or causes problems. There's some issues over Friis with the cops.”

“You have Widow.”

“She works for Pederson.”

“She works for an agency,” Pederson interrupts. “I asked for covert protection, and they sent her.”

“So she's out of bounds for now. Besides, she said she retired. I'm guessing that has more to do with not stepping on SHIELD's toes, but hey. She won't be around as much.”

Clint studies him and finally nods. “I'm out once the three week mark hits, no matter where you are in your project.”

“Deal,” Duquesne agrees quickly. “Barney?”

Clint glances at his watch. “He'll be heading home from work, but he'll want to hear this out of your mouth. Come up to my room after dinner. I'm at the hotel nearby.”

They hadn't eaten anything but the appetizers, but there were so many of them, they all agreed it was enough of a dinner. Natasha downs her fifth glass of wine in the last half hour, pays the check with Pederson's money, and they all follow Clint through the blue and gold tiled floors of his hotel. “What do you make of this?” Pederson asks her quietly as they lag behind. Out of the corner of her, she catches Hill lounging in a sparkly black dress, holding a cocktail and laughing at someone's jokes. Natasha turns her head a little more and sees that Hill has charmed her way into a business party held at a hotel conference room. Hill gives her a little wink and turns back to the man.

“Hawkeye has committed to a job. He always follows through.”

“He doesn't seem to like them very much. Especially Mr. Duquesne.”

Natasha doesn't have the same feeling. Duquesne is more hostile to Clint and Clint to Duquesne, but it's an honest sort of hostility. They don't have the best track record with each other, and they're not interested in playing at politeness. But Chisholm is, and Clint responds in kind. And that sort of false politeness seemed to mask something darker. She could tell from Clint's flexing fingers and tense thigh muscles that he felt more uncomfortable with Chisholm. “In the world of espionage, liking someone doesn't matter. You go where the money leads you.”

“He is not working something else?”

She shakes her head. “Spies can be touchy about someone stealing their trademark. He came here to find out who killed someone with an arrow that wasn't his. I have no reason to believe otherwise.” She sends him a look. “Scandinavia isn't a hotbed of criminal activity.”

“It's much too cold for that,” Pederson agrees.

Inside Clint's hotel room, Clint makes the phone call through the hotel phone, putting it on speakerphone. Barney picks up and says, “That better be you, little brother.”

For a moment, she can make out the edge of misery in Clint's eyes, but it's gone immediately. “Guess who I ran into?”

“Fuck if I know. The caller ID says Sweden, and I don't know who'd be there.”

“ _Denmark._ I'm in Denmark.”

“Close enough,” Barney says.

“Hello, Barney,” Duquesne says.

There's a convincing pause, but Natasha is fairly certain Barney is at the FBI headquarters, and someone is listening in. “Jacques?”

“Yeah, kiddo.”

“Why are you in Sweden?”

“Denmark,” Clint corrects automatically.

Before Barney can say anything, Chisholm jumps in with their pitch. It's not the most convincing pitch, and it relies heavily on shared history. Barney remains silent for a moment after Chisholm winds down. Finally he says apprehensively, “I don't know about that, Buck.”

“Come on. What's the worst that can happen?”

“I could go back to prison.”

“Pris… You won't go back to prison,” Duquesne says. “Look, how much are you making?”

Barney hesitates again. “I don't know. Eight bucks an hour?”

“Seriously, kid? You don't even know?”

“Seven and a quarter maybe? I don't keep track of how many hours I work.”

Duquesne and Chisholm both roll their eyes. They don't seem surprised at this. Natasha spares a thought for young Barney Barton, playing mother, father, and brother and not being good at any of them. Barney wouldn't have been hired by the FBI if he was so scatterbrained, but she wonders if he didn't use to keep track of things in the best way. He hadn't had the skill with a bow and arrow or with a sword, so maybe he had worked minimum wage jobs wherever they were. Maybe he had a track record for losing track of how many hours he worked. Natasha would bet he worked as much as he could and came back to the circus too tired to count. He just took the paycheck with whatever it was. “Come on, kid. Two and half million. You won't have to work for years.”

Barney hesitates again. Clint manages to unclench his jaw and tells his brother, “Come on. You know you're not making enough to live off of. What if the police find out you've been doing some stuff on the side?”

Barney sighs. It's a good performance, Natasha will give him that. “I guess,” he admits.

“I'll buy you a ticket,” Clint says coaxingly. “Tomorrow. You can quit your job.”

“Okay,” he concedes begrudgingly. “Is it cold over there?”

“It's spring. You'll be fine.” Clint pauses. “Bring all your long sleeves.”

Barney hangs up on a grumble.

–

Natasha’s phone rings at three in the morning. She jerks awake and answers it with, “Who died?”

“Barton’s sense of peace,” Hill tells her. “I’m not getting through to him and I would like to sleep.”

“I’ll be right there.”

When she gets to their hotel, she finds Clint sitting at the bay window, smoking a cigarette and knee deep in a bottle of whiskey. She slides down next to him and asks, “Wasn’t your father an alcoholic?”

“Like father, like son.”

“I would think you didn’t want to be like him.”

He snorts. “I kill people for a living. I think I’ve already surpassed him as a monster.” He takes a long swallow. “Surpassed. I hate that word.”

“You don’t have to be a monster.”

“That’s what Bobbi kept telling me in the beginning.” He shifts, drops the whiskey bottle down. It splashes over the carpet but he doesn’t notice as he stubs out the cigarette. “SHIELD was different from freelance. And not just because you answer to someone. When I was freelance, all I had to do was follow someone around long enough to get a clear shot. Took a couple days, week at the most. I never got close.”

“You don’t like getting close?” Natasha asks. But she already knows the answer. Clint is not built like her. He is not a weapon willing to take out anything within view. And maybe once upon a time, she wasn’t that weapon either, but that was decades ago, in a ramshackle house in World War II Russia. This much she remembers. And sometimes it makes her wonder if she wasn’t angry at the world from birth.

“The first person I killed for SHIELD was a pedophile who bought and killed little boys,” Clint says with a definite slur to his words. She looks around the room for another bottle and spots it on the floor next to Hill’s bed. Hill is awake, dark eyes somehow luminous in the dim light as she watches them. “He was well protected. I needed to get close. You know, I spent a fucking month trying to coax him to be alone with me. The only thing was he was so busy trying to figure out my game—he thought everyone had a game—he was trying to figure out mine and he didn’t—he didn’t get around to killing any more kids.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Natasha sees Hill rise into a sitting position and flip on the light next to her bed. With the added light, Natasha can see the anguish etched into every inch of Clint’s face. He reaches for the bottle; she places her hand on top of his, pressing down just hard enough for him to let go. “He deserved to die.”

“Did I deserve to kill him?”

“I don’t understand.”

“I never wanted to be a monster. I never wanted to kill. I just wanted to eat. I didn’t want to be so fucking cold in the winter. It was a lot easier killing someone you never met. You didn’t have to see the light go out of their eyes. You didn’t have to know that no matter how terrible they were people loved them. You didn’t have to—I wanted to save the world when I was a kid. You know that? I wanted to save the world. I started killing people instead. And the only way I could live with myself was to tell myself if I just killed bad people I wouldn’t lose out on being a hero.”

Natasha makes an involuntary, helpless movement with her hands in Hill’s direction, but she offers nothing in response. “You’re just upset about Chisholm and Duquesne, Clint. And you’re drunk.”

“Fuck yes I’m upset about them. They won. I’m a bigger monster than they are.”

–

Barney arrives two days later to find his brother coming off a sixty hour drinking binge. Luckily, Chisholm and Duquesne haven’t shown up again. Natasha has been appointed by Pederson to pick up Barney and take him and Clint to the underground lair that makes up their headquarters for this little project. Which is just as well. Natasha shook off the three tails they set around her, and Clint shook off the five tails on him despite being unsteady and out of it, so they have time for lunch with Hill and the FBI agent accompanying Barney. With a battle plan in place, Hill and the FBI agent leave, and Natasha waits for Clint to buy himself another cup of coffee. The line is long, which gives plenty of time for Barney to ask why Clint smells like whiskey and cigarette smoke. “I thought Bobbi lectured him into giving up smoking,” he says, fiddling with the strap of his bag as they wait in the corridor. Barney pauses. “He looks like dad.”

“Don’t tell him that. He’s having a hard time with Duquesne and Chisholm. He started drinking after their meeting and hasn’t stopped since.”

“It’s been three days!”

“I’m not a therapist. I don’t know what you want me to tell you. Hill’s kept him from drinking himself into a coma, and that’s probably the best we can hope for right now.” Natasha glances at the line. She has plenty of time to tell Barney how bad Clint has been doing, including the fact that he somehow tracked down some hardcore pain pills from a questionable source and spent most of yesterday in an alarmingly blissful state. Bobbi called from next door in Sweden to tell him she was done and coming home and to check on him. Natasha answered the phone, remembered to thank her for working with the serums, and promptly told her her husband needed copious amounts of therapy right now.

Bobbi wasn’t surprised.

The conversation had been cut short by Clint nearly tumbling off the balcony, but Natasha wouldn’t be surprised if Bobbi shows up in the next couple of days. According to Serena, Fury has been wondering if sending Clint was a good idea. He knows them, but at the end of the day, that seemed to be more of a hindrance than anything.

“Bobbi might show up,” Natasha says casually. “Probably under a guise, so I guess be prepared for that.” She hesitates. “Clint needs something only she can give right now.”

“Stability,” Barney says. “Clint needs stability, and Bobbi’s the only stable thing in his life.” He doesn’t sound happy.

–

The underground lair headquarters makes Natasha feel claustrophobic. She leads them through the tour and deposits them into the room they will stay in. “This is the only room it’s safe to talk in,” she tells them. “There’s a camera and microphone disruptor up there. SHIELD issue. You have access to most of the lair as security, but for the couple of rooms you don’t, I copied the fobs. They’re in the nightstand along with schematics and burner phones if we need you. My number and Hill’s is already programmed in. I assume Barney knows the number for his partner. I also put Serena’s number in. She’ll be on standby if we need her.

“Your three weeks starts today. Good luck and try not to kill each other.”


	9. Part Nine: Clint

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry this took so long. I actually forgot about it for two months (I've been having some health issues, nothing serious though, thankfully) and it took a few times to get it to something I thought worked. For everyone who liked and reviewed this, thank you! I'm so grateful. The best news is that Part II of this series is my NaNoWriMo project so hopefully that'll be up sooner and faster.

SPRING 2003

“Something’s on fire,” Barney says as if this was a normal, everyday occurrence. Who knows, maybe it is. Clint’s spent the last five days drowning in a whiskey bottle and snacking on alcohol filled chocolates. For all he knows, there’s a fire every hour. He doesn’t pay that much attention during his shifts.

“I’m on it,” he says without interest. He manages to stumble onto his feet and head in the right direction of the fire. He smells it before he can even feel it. The underground headquarters has narrow hallways and a short ceiling, and as he heads closer towards the curling smoke, the small space starts to feel tighter and heavy. There isn’t any circulation down here. He coughs his way into the room. It’s one of the many storage rooms where spare metal rods and C-4 are left. Even still dazed from last night’s binge drinking, he knows C-4 and fire have the potential to be a bad combination. Too bad no one bothered to put a fire extinguisher anywhere in this place. He picks up the C-4, tosses it into the hallway, and rifles through a cabinet until he finds concrete bricks that are being stored for reasons Buck and Jacques don’t feel necessary to share. He shuts the door tightly behind him and places the concrete blocks along the edge. He picks up the C-4 and carts it back to the monitor room. At least now he knows where the growing pile of it is coming from.

Barney eyes the C-4 blocks. “The fire’s not out?”

“Do we have something to take it out with?”

“Not that I know of,” he admits. “D’you think it’ll burn out?”

“I guess I’ll get some rags or something.”

Clint leaves the room again, making a small detour to grab his flask from the break room. It was Bobbi’s third anniversary present. It’s engraved with his initials in a flowing, calligraphic font. It only holds five ounces, but he wasn’t drinking so much back then. She wouldn’t have gotten it for him if he had been. He downs the flask, refills it, and rifles through the closet. He comes up with a jacket made out of one hundred percent polyester. Not the best option, but short of theater curtains, he wasn’t sure what else would work that they had on hand. The jacket probably wasn’t big enough, but it would have to do. No one has taken the suggestion of fire extinguishers or any other preventative measures seriously. For Clint and Barney, there are other things to do, and for Jacques and Buck, who like living life a little too close to the edge, it’s unnecessary and a waste of money. 

The smoke is visible as Clint creeps down the hallway again. On a good day he can barely tolerate the heavy dark smoke in his lungs; with the throbbing ache in the back of his neck and the way his eyes hurt in the dull light and the queasiness of his empty stomach, the gray smoke curling its way closer to him feels even worse. He thinks he should have put something over his nose and mouth, but he’s not about to make another trip. He kicks the concrete blocks out of the way, takes a deep breath, and pulls the door open. The flames jump out, and he curses to himself as he beats them with the jacket. When the polyester starts to melt, he wishes he still had that pair of fireproof gloves he bought for a mission somewhere in Panama, but he lost them on a mission in Wales less than a year later. He doesn’t typically get close enough to fires for it to matter too much, and he couldn’t rationalize buying another ridiculously expensive pair. 

Still, he could have borrowed Bobbi’s. That would have required him to know he’d be stuck in an underground lair with the two people he hates more than anything in this world. And Barney. If he stays sober for any longer than two hours, he might remember he hates his brother too. 

The flames give out finally, just in time, because the last square inch of the jacket is about to start melting. He drops it quickly and slams the door shut behind him, replaces the concrete blocks, coughs into the hazy, heated hallway. He checks himself for signs of damage—his boots are smoking but still intact—and makes his way back to monitor room. Barney is chewing thoughtfully on a granola bar. Clint swipes it from his hand and sits back. “How often does this happen?”

For a moment, it seems like Barney is going to say something about Clint’s drinking this past week. After all, he sits in this little room for sixteen hours a day, often with Barney, and he really ought to know how often fires pop up. But instead, he’s been wading into a level of alcohol he once swore he would never touch again. Clint flinches when the thought lands. Last time he drank this much was over six years ago, and he’d picked a fight with Bobbi over something with the new young, handsome lab assistant she had. She’d been hurt then angry then belligerent. He’d started at belligerent and gone into rage and then into a sort of bitter, violent frenzy. He doesn’t remember the actual fight so much, but he remembers the overwhelming urge to smack her across the face.

His hand had come up to do it too. He’d stopped himself last second, slamming his hand into the wall behind her. The only two things about that night that are fully clear to him, years later, are his instant horror with himself and Bobbi’s shocked face. He’d walked out of the house in a daze and hadn’t come back, choosing instead to hide in his safe house studio in SoHo. He didn’t even come back for clothes. He simply bought new ones. He managed to avoid Bobbi at work for three weeks. Eventually, she cornered him as he left the psych ward, grabbed his arm, marched him into the stairwell, and asked him to come home. He did—three more weeks later, when the therapist pointed out that he hadn’t actually hit Bobbi and that she clearly already forgave him and that running away wasn’t an option. Clint denied he was running away even as he mentally debated asking Fury for a transfer. But Fury would want to know why, and because Clint was still working his probationary term in exchange for not going to prison, the only other option was Washington DC and he wasn’t interested in going there. Prison was starting to look like a good option, but Bobbi cornered him again, and this time he went. It wasn’t a choice he remembers making. All he remembers is her eyes watering as she waited for an answer and he didn’t like being the one who made her cry. 

“Are you listening to me?” Barney demands, breaking Clint’s train of thought. “What’s that face for?”

For a moment, the truth almost slips out, but Clint catches himself. True, he and Barney are technically responsible for the monitoring of the cameras and microphones—cheap models bought from a business going under that tend to go out in one place or another on an hourly basis—but he doesn’t doubt they’re being watched by Buck and Jacques in some way. And he doesn’t want to tell him anyway. Instead, he says, “Do you think they know I’m drinking my way through this?” He turns to Barney and adds, “Buck and Jacques, I mean.”

“They’re not surprised.”

Clint absorbs that for a beat. It’s not a shocker to him either. Coping isn’t something he does well. “So, about the fires?”

–

Natasha sweeps into the bedroom just as Barney and Clint are getting ready for bed. Barney mumbles what’s likely an excuse, although Clint can’t make the words out, and leaves. Clint just settles down on his cot and watches her. She’s wearing a ballgown with too much tulle for her frame and too many sequins for anyone’s eyes. She tosses her purse—covered in glitter—next to him on the bed. Her hand comes up to her ear to play with her earrings. He recognizes them. SHIELD-issued diamond earrings, complete with a camera and microphone disruptor. Finally, she says, “What are you doing?”

“Going to sleep,” he says, acutely aware she looks angry.

She throws one of her shoes at him. At least it’s not glittery.

“In the interests of our newly minted friendship, I kept my mouth my shut. But Hill informs me that’s enabling behavior and it’s not healthy. So. This is a SHIELD mission, and you’re senior agent. Barney isn’t trained for these kinds of missions, and Hill and Stephenson can’t pick up your slack. _I_ can’t pick up your slack. Fury’s sending Bobbi in just to see if she can get you on the track again. Also, the second this mission is done you’re on probation.”

The word echoes in his head. Probation. A different probation than his get out of prison mostly free card. This sort of probation is a black mark on his record with SHIELD and could be used against him at a later date if anyone really wants to be an asshole. Because, well, Fury usually fires people who fuck up this badly. It’s a testament to his trust of Clint that he wasn’t fired and pulled out of the mission, but in some ways this is worse. 

“I’ll do better,” he says dutifully. He’ll have to because he doubts Fury’s faith in his abilities will last much longer. He figures he has two days max to at least appear like he’s getting his act together before Fury busts in here and shuts it down. They want to find the person behind this, but not enough to risk losing Trickshot and the Swordsman. Clint wouldn’t mind that, honestly, but then this whole thing would have been a waste of everyone’s time and money.

“Good. Bobbi’s waiting for you. Tonight at ten.” She glances at her diamond watch and he wonders if Pederson is paying her in jewels instead of money. “I was supposed to come by earlier. I’ve cleared it with Duquesne and Chisholm. They think you’re meeting a prostitute.” She hands him a scrap of paper with a hotel address and a room number marching along the page in Bobbi’s neat, precise script. Without thinking, with the muscle memory of a paranoid spy, he memorizes it, grabs the lighter on his nightstand, and sets in on fire. Natasha gives him something like a smirk and sweeps out of the room, fiddling with her earring again. 

Clint glances at the clock. It’s already just past nine, and the hotel is in Copenhagen. Just getting there will take a half hour, so he gets to his feet to rifle through his closet. He shoves himself into a brand new pair of jeans he had to get after another fire a few hours after the first one earlier, still stiff and smelling new, and tosses on a Henley. He slips on the first pair of shoes he can find, a beaten pair of leather boots that he thinks are actually his brother’s but they wear the same size. He climbs into the car Buck procured for them to use. Barney waves him off from the only entrance to the top; Natasha stands beside him, mouth moving. 

He’s crossing the lobby when the clock strikes ten. It’s decorated tastefully with gold filigree and soft ivory walls and shiny brown leather couches. The rest of the hotel looks much the same, including the room he knocks on. Bobbi lets him in wearing a gauzy off white nightdress much the same shade as the rest of the room. Royal blue sheets and a black marble kitchenette counter top are the only splashes of color in the room. “Tasteful doesn’t mean colorless, ya know,” he drawls as she pours out what he’s sure is sparkling grape juice and not real wine. 

Bobbi shrugs as she hands him a glass. “I kind of like it. It look likes a museum.”

He tugs on the neckline of her dress. “I see you got into the color scheme.”

“I didn’t realize until I unpacked that all the nightgowns I brought with me are either black or white.” She presses her shoulder against his, moving him back toward the couch. “I’m to inform you Fury is one step away from firing you.”

“Would that be better than the probation?”

“Sit down.”

“That’s a no.”

“Alcoholism isn’t the way to fix this. Fury asked you if you thought you would be able to handle this. You haven’t been handling it from the start. A direct lie to Fury isn’t going to sit well with the Council. But he generally thought you’d be okay. He thought you’d moved on from this. But then he doesn’t know the truth, does he?” She sets her wineglass down on the glass table but doesn’t sit. When she reaches out a hand to him, he moves away. “It helps to say these things out loud.”

“I said it out loud. I told you.”

“No, you didn’t. I saw the scars, and you had the same expression you always did whenever they came up. I guessed. Say it out loud. That’s step one.”

“There isn’t a twelve step program for these things, doll,” he says as his hand comes up without thought. The scar on his chest is deep but faded with age. The scars on his shoulder are mostly hidden by longer, thicker scars from his torture by Gashi. He’s glad not to be able to see them, but Barney’s betrayal is an even harsher sting.

“Say it,” she say unrelentingly. “Say, ‘Buck pinned me to the tree with arrows and Jacques stabbed me.’”

He doesn’t register anything for just a second. For just a second, he’s fourteen years old, betrayed and immobile with excruciating pain, trying to make sense of the dimming faces of the men he very stupidly trusted. But then that second is over, and the blood fades to sparkling grape juice on the off white carpet, the broken glass glittering under the chandelier. Bobbi steps around it carefully and gets him to his feet. When she touches his arm, he looks down at her hand and realizes a shard of glass embedded itself in the skin between his thumb and index finger. He lets her lead him to the bathroom, also white and gold, which he only really notices is a distant, vague way, the thought slipping away as soon as he thinks it. She pries the glass out and washes it under the sink, all while he just stands there, forcing down what he has deliberately not thought of in over fifteen years. 

Buck, wild with anger, face mottled red, his hands shaking, demanding Clint’s cooperation. Jacques, angry but calmer, coaxing Clint into giving up the evidence for their crimes that he now possesses somehow. He’d stumbled into the evidence, stumbled into their latest plot, stumbled into this fight, and he never did manage to figure out how he got there. Making for the meadow, turning just for a second, just to see where they were, and finding an arrow suddenly pinning his left shoulder to the tree behind him. Another in his right. Then they were standing over him, a dangerous looking knife in Jacques’s hand. 

“Clint, honey,” Bobbi murmurs softly, but her voice sounds like it’s underwater. “Clint, listen to me. Focus on my voice.”

Dimly, he becomes aware that he’s hyperventilating. He forces himself to breathe more normally, and her voice becomes clearer. He was on the verge of passing out. It hasn’t been that bad in years. He slides down to the floor. His legs feel like rubber, and he can’t seem to stand anymore. Bobbi gets on the floor too, towel in hand, reaching for his hand again. He lets her take it and dry it, nods jerkily when she quietly excuses herself to get her first aid kit. By the time she gets back, he’s managed to steady his breathing. His hands aren’t shaking anymore, either, but he notices he’s rocking back and forth, which explains the dull pain radiating from his back—he’s hitting against the handle of the cabinets beneath the sink. He shifts away from it. “I can’t say it,” he admits quietly. “Saying it out loud makes it real.”

Her fingertips brush over his chest, over the knife wound Jacques left there. “It’s already real,” she says just as quietly. “All you need to do is admit it still has power over you.”

He can’t, or he won’t, or both. He doesn’t know anymore. It’s easier to just let it be the past. “I’m tired,” he says instead, pushing up and ignoring the fact that she still hasn’t finished wrapping the bandage around his hand. He takes the bandage from her when she stops by from leaving by dangling it in his face. He wraps his hand and says, “I’m going to bed,” and he doesn’t know if he wants her to say something or not. But she doesn’t comment at all, she just gestures to the bed.

–

He dreams of blood and pain. When he wakes, it takes him a minute of heavy breathing to realize the walls are not stained with his blood. Bobbi is right; he has to deal with this. He stumbles out of bed and sits at the kitchen counter with a glass of cold water and an apple. He picks at it as he focuses on the memories he’s spent years repressing.

He doesn’t remember much. He’s blocked it all from his memory—Jacques’s request, his refusal to comply, his stumbling into things he wasn’t supposed to know, Buck chasing him through the meadows. Brambles smacking into his face. Jacques waiting on the other side. Clint had never wanted to be a thief, and the latest request involved a potential murder, lying to cops, and setting up old man Dominic to take the fall. Clint has never been sure, even now, what Dominic did in the circus, but he always seemed to have Buck and Jaques’s number. 

That was the problem. He’s never had their number. Jacques has always been easy to hate. Not as easy to understand, but Clint could always handle him though. Jacques didn’t hold too much back. Buck is a far less comfortable quantity. Clint learned too late that all his emotions have an edge to them, and he never figured out if it was an angry edge or a dangerous one or if it didn’t mean anything at all. He knows where he stands with Jacques—somewhere between a mild amusement and a bug to squash—but Buck always liked to pretend things were different than they actually were. He never acknowledged fights or apologized for things he said or accepted apologies for things said to him. He simply moved on and expected everyone to do the same. Even now, he operates as if there isn’t bad blood between them.

Literal blood, Clint thinks as he absently rubs the spot on his chest where Jacques had stabbed him again.

Jacques, at least, bluntly told Clint two days ago that he wasn’t going to apologize for that since he wasn’t sorry. Clint told him he wouldn’t have believed him anyway. Jacques never forgave him for taking to the bow more than the sword, and the rift only deepened in the eight years that followed. Even then, he wasn’t the one eager to kill Clint. It was Buck who shot the arrows that pinned Clint to the tree. It was Buck who was wild-eyed with rage when he demanded Jacques’s knife and didn’t receive it.

Later, Clint realized that Buck wanted to kill him and Jacques stepping in is what saved him. The knife didn’t go in deep enough to hit his heart and it didn’t hit any arteries for him to bleed to death. Clint doubted he meant to be nice. Most likely, he thought Buck would come to his senses and remember they needed Clint as a front. The cops weren’t looking for a too small fourteen year old with sad eyes and zero education. But Clint managed to crawl of out the dumpster they left him in. All he remembers is blinding, searing pain in his shoulders where Buck pinned him the tree and in his chest. So much pain that he couldn’t tell where it was radiating from. He managed to pull the arrow shafts from his shoulders and staunch the bleeding knife wound. He staggered into the nearest town and dodged into an alley in the bad part of town and stayed there for what must have been days. He’d been waiting to die, but he hadn’t. Somehow. After what felt like days of pain, the dizziness of pain turned into a dizziness from no water or food and he pushed himself to stand up and stumble his way to a water fountain he thought he saw when he stumbled into town. 

He doesn’t like thinking of sitting in an unkempt attempt at a park with blood drying his shirt to him and his fingers shaking as he tried to hit the button. He had stayed until morning, drinking at random intervals and debating pulling his shirt away from his skin. He decided around dawn to wait until night again to do anything. He spent the entire day moving slowly into a different part of town without getting noticed and at night, he broke into a store to steal some clothes and food and bandages. And from there, he just stumbled along, eating and drinking as much as he could steal and healing too slowly, the skin itching as it knitted together again, his chest burning as he took deep breaths. 

Clint tightens his fingers on the gun on the counter next to him. It would take the work of a second to shoot them both and be done with it, but that wouldn’t answer the question of what they’re doing or who they’re working for. But it would be satisfying. Just for the horrible, terrible realization he had while huddled in a dark rotting alley—that he was alone permanently now. No one would tell Barney what happened. No one knew except Buck and Jacques. And they considered him expendable even after years together. No one would look for him. It was survive or die in this world. He couldn’t and wouldn’t show up at a child services location or the local police station. For eight years he existed off the map and if six year old Clint couldn’t get adopted, he didn’t see why he would be at fourteen with bitterer memories and the newest rejection that somehow hurt more. 

So he’d chosen survival, a choice that led him from thievery to murder over the course of five years. There’s a lot of regret in that some days, but most days he lets himself settle for the maybe false notion that he’s helping more than hurting by going after drug pushers that sell to kids and prostitution rings that deal in lies or children or kidnapping or… the list is long. There’s a lot of bad in the world. Clint hopes he can eradicate just a little and that will have to be enough for him. He doesn’t have many choices otherwise. And to be honest, he thinks, spinning in the chair to face the bed where Bobbi sleeps peacefully, he can’t regret anything that led him to his wife. 

He downs the water and trashes the apple, now bruised from his nails digging into it. He only managed a couple of bites. He climbs back into bed, murmuring her name when he notices her hand tightening on the knife beneath her pillow. He finds it endearing, as he always has, these little spy quirks, but part of him still wishes they aren’t roused from sleep so easily and with so much caution. 

Bobbi’s eyes flicker open, a deep endless blue. “Are you okay, honey?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” 

She studies his face. He knows she won’t find what she wants to see. He can’t set aside the pain that easily. All the memories seem to have done is make him feel like the knife wound in his chest was new again. He could feel it itching like it was knitting back together, could feel a sharp pain when he twists his torso. It’s all his head. But when he leans over to brush a stray hair from Bobbi’s forehead, he can feel the burning pressure of a long-healed wound. 

Her mouth tightens. “I don’t know what to do for you. I don’t like not being able to help you.”

“It’ll all be okay.”

“Shouldn’t I be telling you that?”

“Of course not. You don’t believe it.”

“I want to.”

He wants to too. But he believes it as much as she does. Every time he thinks he’ll be just fine, something seems to happen. “It’ll be okay,” he says again. “It’ll be fine.” It’ll have to be. He can’t hold on to this forever.

–

Barney calls him on the burner phones Natasha gave them at six in the morning. “Guess who’s in town?” he asks. The tamped-down rage in his voice is enough to make Clint shift from groggy with nightmares to fully alert in a heartbeat. He shifts away from Bobbi and sits up.

“I don’t like that tone.”

“Xavier Masterson.”

“He never leaves Sacramento.”

“That’s what I thought,” Barney says. “And Buck and Jacques have a lunch meeting with him.”

“Fuck. I’m coming back.”

As soon as he’s managed to find his shirt, the phone rings again. This time it’s Maria, and she’s tense. Well, tenser than usual. “Sic Mockingbird on Masterson,” she bites out. “Find out why he’s here. Rumor has it he did some business with Chisholm and Duquesne a couple years ago.”

“The kind of business he does isn’t their usual thing.”

Clint had business with Masterson too, back in his freelance days. The man didn’t look much—maybe five six, with a beer belly and a mustache that belong in a seventies porno, thinning black hair that was always slicked back and knobby little fingers—but he had a streak of psychopathic glee that popped up from time to time. When Clint knew him, he had an ancient Greek scythe. Instead of using the blade like most people would do, he would grip it with gardening gloves and use the carved handle to break bones. Sometimes he used the blade, but more often than not, Clint dealt the final blow when he was with him.

He almost believes that Masterson isn’t behind this. It seems too showman-like for him. Even with his scythe, he’s still a man who doesn’t add a lot of frills to his destruction. Unlike Buck or Jacques… or Clint himself.

“That doesn’t make me feel even a little better, Barton,” Maria says, and she hangs up. 

He shoves the phone into his jeans’ pocket and shakes Bobbi awake. It doesn’t take much. Within seconds she has a knife to his throat. If they hadn’t spent the night together, he wouldn’t have had those extra two seconds of warning. But he does, so he grabs her wrist before the knife cuts him. As she comes fully awake, her arm drops, the knife dragging against the fabric of his shirt, not deep enough to cut it, but he can feel it. “Xavier Masterson’s in town, has a lunch meeting with those assholes, Hill wants you on him, and I promise I won’t get drunk again.”

“Is that the best I ask for right now?”

He shrugs into his jacket, stiffening at the question. “Yeah, doll. I’m sorry.”

–

When he gets back to the underground lair, Barney is pacing the floor of the monitor room. He looks up, his face haggard and exhausted. Clint can guess why. The daily fires must have happened sometime recently, as evidenced by the wafting smoke and charred wood he passed coming in. The extra security is playing cards in the break room. The monitors are flickering in and out, courtesy of whatever cheap, bargain bin stock Jacques chose to buy from. And Buck and Jacques are deep in building their bombs, which are ticking. He would offer some pointers on how not to make World War I era bombs to them, but that would require talking to them for any length of time. Still, it might get him into the room. So far, he’s been too drunk to sneak around the building like he was supposed to.

For a second, Clint wants to reach across and hug his brother, but then he remembers he hates him. Or is mad at him. In any case, he isn’t ready to offer comforting hugs. So he slides down into his chair, pushes Barney’s box of granola bars to the side, and tells him to just go to sleep already. Barney gives him a look that promises censure, at a later date, when he doesn’t look like he’s going to fall sleep right where he’s standing. But he finally just nods and leaves, leaving Clint to mentally review everything. Not the easiest task when you’ve been drinking for a week straight and missing some of the information shared. The headache forming doesn’t help either. He hasn’t eaten in hours, and his body is craving alcohol. His mouth is sour, and he has a premonition of doom that’s slowly getting stronger. 

That’s just part of the job, really, but he doesn’t like how strong it is.

He rips a blank page from the back of Barney’s crossword puzzle book, grabs a pencil, and keeps one eye on the monitors while he writes out what he knows in the code he and Natasha used to communicate with each other back when it was dangerous to. He’s only used it once in the last ten years, to capture her. But it comes back to him easily, a code that was agreed upon with silent understanding, the way they made all their decisions. The fact that this silent understanding was misunderstood as often as it was understood didn’t matter to either of them. They weren’t about to talk to each other.

After an hour, he lifts his head and feels a rush of dizziness, but he’s filled the page. They’re assuming Pederson isn’t involved since he doesn’t seem to have any contact with crime bosses and only talks to Buck and Jacques for about two minutes every other day. Buck and Jacques are building bombs, allegedly to test out some sort of container for Pederson’s company. No one buys this except maybe Pederson himself, but why he seems to believe it is beyond Clint. He has no military ties, and his companies tend not to make things that could double as weapons. The best excuse Pederson came up with was that they were testing the strength of the containers, but experts combed through the reports Natasha hacked in to, and none of them needed to withstand the strength of a bomb. 

And if Masterson is involved, if he left his native Sacramento that he never leaves for this, then what’s the end game? Is Denmark the target or just a convenient place not to get caught? The problem is Hill and Martina Stephenson, the FBI agent sent with Barney, have uncovered lots of things in the last few days, some of which Clint doesn’t remember. But what he does know, from frustrated phone calls and text messages he remembered to check in his more sober moments, is that all the information they have doesn’t really add up to anything in particular. It’s just pieces—Hill called it the middle of a puzzle, and they were missing what tied it all together. Masterson is a new, unwelcome piece. His previous involvement with Buck and Jacques is an even more unwelcome piece. He wasn’t known for dramatics, bombs, or the type of thievery and manipulation associated with Buck and Jacques. 

Clint lingers on the paper for several more hours before he decides to kick their backup security out of the break room and make them do a real job. They’re not getting paid that much, but that’s no excuse for playing cards all day. He tucks the paper in his pocket and threatens them until they take over his job for watching the monitors long enough for him to make himself a sandwich and put his head down for half an hour. Or a full hour. The aftereffects of binge drinking have never been conducive to thought and action. He gives up on rest twenty minutes in, downs four antacids and more painkillers than he should be taking, and returns to the monitor room. He assigns the backup team the midnight to eight am shift—the dead zone where witnessing a fight between Buck and Jacques is about the only thing that ever happens, and Clint’s seen so many of their fights he can tell you what they’re going to say before they say it. When he’s alone again, he resigns himself to counting down the hours. If he tries a crossword, he’ll inevitably be more interested in that than the monitors. 

At seven at night another fire lights up in the eastern part of the wing, and as he trudges down to deal with it, he wonders if these are planned or in a pattern or something. Barney told him the fire happened multiple times a day at different points in entirely different places. Neither of them would put it past Buck or Jacques to start fires on their own project. Possibly Barney’s already thought of this and the fires are labeled on one of the maps in their shared nightstand drawer. He hasn’t looked. He hasn’t done anything but sample all the available alcoholic within a hundred miles. He reminds himself to check, but if Barney already has it done then that’s not new information. He would’ve already shared it with Maria and Agent Stephenson. 

There’s no rush to make it back to the monitor room. He stops by the break room. He makes another sandwich and wishes for some hot food. It doesn’t help with him thinking. He orders half the backup team into the monitor room, tucks a couple granola bars in his pocket, refills his thermos with coffee and goes to wander the complex under the guise of trying to stop the fires. 

He knocks at the walls as he walks down the hall. Wood but solid. From what he can tell from the schematics and the occasion bare spot, there’s a thick layer of concrete underneath. The wood is painted silver to match the ceiling which seem to be covered in tin. He can easily scrape off the top layer of wood, which he does by accident turning a corner. Underneath it’s moldering and damp. He can’t imagine why no one let it dry out. 

The corners are narrow and sharp, and his head skims the top of the tin ceiling. Given that both Jacques and Buck are taller than him it’s amazing they don’t constantly knock their heads against it. But they’re both stooping over and getting old, so maybe it’s not a problem. Unfortunate. A concussion for them would be nice. It would solve a lot of problems, and it might make Fury pull out of the mission before they find out the end game. Of course, most people would just hire new minions when the old ones were found out. Whatever was going to happen was going to happen. It was their job to make sure they figured out before it caused widespread massive destruction. 

Clint turns another corner and immediately loses his bearings. The lair is unnecessarily complex, a series of winding hallways and doors that weren’t doors. He doesn’t remember visiting this part before. For one, there’s a door that’s coated with dust. Not a fake one either; he can see lights on underneath it. Another entrance to the room Buck and Jacques work in, maybe. Clint studies the walls. He can’t see any cameras mounted. No microphones. No thin sheet of metal covering a hidden gun cache, like the ones every three right turns. He doesn’t have any equipment with him to check for hidden cameras, but he would wager this hall is watched too. Just not on the cameras he and Barney monitor. Not for the first time he wonders what game Buck and Jacques are playing. Clint doesn’t come cheap, and he’s really not doing anything. Probably they figured Clint would just go along with everything and let them be. He guesses they had the luxury of forgetting they left him for dead.

Clint takes two more left turns and finds himself facing an area where there aren’t any lights. He nearly slips on a small set of stairs. He waits for a few seconds until his eyes adjust to the darkness and carefully walks down the six steep steps. He can hear a murmur and smell burning sulfur. A fissure runs in the wall next to him, split open to reveal the rotted wood underneath. The murmur grows louder as he carefully takes two more steps, and he realizes it’s water and not voices like he first thought. A steady murmur of water in a cracking fountain in the middle of the room. 

He takes two more steps into the room and looks around. It isn’t lit enough for him to see much, but he doesn’t see any large objects moving. He doesn’t smell a layer of dust. He doesn’t sense anything that would indicate this place was untouched, and that thought gets him retracing his steps up the stairs and back into the shifting hallways. He takes another trail in right turns and finds himself facing two-way glass. On the other side of the glass is a brightly lit room with a lot of high tech equipment. No one’s inside, but there are signs people are working there—a half drunk bottle of water, a sandwich bag with trail mix in it, the fact there’s no dust or rust or grime.

He takes a few more turns and enters a hallway with a series of red doors. At first he thinks he’s hallucinating, but they’re still red when he opens his eyes. He takes a sip of coffee and casually studies the hall. Something tells him he’s being watched, so he doesn’t make any moves to open a door. There are ten doors in all. The lights are on underneath all of them. He can’t make out any differences. Finally, he makes the point of shrugging and casually walking away, going back to study the hallways he knows. The hallways that are on the schematics, unlike these.

When he gets back to the monitor room, Barney is sitting there alone. Clint slides down next to him, and for a split second, their shoulders brush. He makes a concentrated effort not to flinch away and an even more concentrated effort not to reach for his flask in his pocket. Although it was probably empty given he hadn’t been back to their room to refill it. 

Barney doesn’t appear to notice his near flinch, but who knows. He watches Clint slide into his chair and asks, “Did you find the source of the fires?”

Clint aims for dismissive nonchalance. “I guess this place was built on something else. There’s an older place all the way at the end. A cracked fountain and some colorful doors.” Except the rest of the hall looked like this one. “I don’t see them on the blueprints.”

Barney absorbs this for a beat. When the implication sinks in a half second later, he snorts. “How many people need underground lairs, really?”

–

Natasha comes by that night. She’s wearing diamond earrings that hit her shoulders and obnoxiously glitter under the lights. He expected her. Barney called Agent Stephenson, and she and Maria made the decision to send Natasha around. She may not be the Black Widow anymore, but her temper was notorious, and no one would question what the plan has them do too much.

He waits nervously, but it doesn’t seem to show. The premonition of doom is growing in his belly, and because of it, all he’s had to eat or drink for hours is coffee and a granola bar that he threw up. When he was showering earlier, Barney had walked into their room, called Bobbi, and shoved the phone at him.

Whatever Bobbi might have said to soothe him didn’t work. And not only because it went in one ear and out the other. Instinct counts for a lot when you’re a spy. And instinct is screaming at him that something has the potential to go horribly wrong. So he waits. The waiting’s the worst part. It’s the time where his brain can go off in a million directions and assume worse and worse things. At least when something’s gone wrong, he has a problem to solve or some logical procession of things to follow if anything else goes wrong. But before it starts, all he can do is wait.

Then Natasha sweeps in, dressed in the nines in crisp pristine suit, and starts their silly little game. She accuses him of telling tales to a mutual contact in a nasty little voice, and off they go. It’s easy to make this fight look realistic and even easier to pretend he’s falling back. Even on his best day, she can defeat him in hand to hand, and today is far from his best day. It’s easy to retreat deeper and deeper into the lair and pretend it’s all her fault. He’s noticed that not even Buck and Jacques are willing to cross her. 

He draws her to the area with the red doors, which wasn’t really his intent, but he lost track of where they were. After a second, he collapses against the wall and takes a deep shaky breath, ignoring the way she eyes him as she opens the face of her watch and flicks a switch on the side. “Two cameras, two mics, either end of hall,” she whispers so quietly that he just focuses on her lips instead. “Deactivated,” she says after a short pause, or at least that’s what he thinks she says, but she’s turned to the side some so he’s really not sure. He focuses on her mouth and thinks for the person who was with him the first time he got hearing aids, she really should know better by now. Then she starts talking some more and he sighs to himself.

“I can’t hear you,” he murmurs and she spins around.

“Sorry. I was checking… something’s not right.” She glances down at the watch face again. He doesn’t know the instrument she’s using. She pulls out her phone and calls someone. When they answer she turns away, fiddling with watch some more. She must be whispering into the phone because he can’t hear her at all. But he does hear something, a whirling noise. He slides his back up the wall, standing as silently as he can and treads lightly along the corridor. Where Natasha is pacing he can’t hear it anymore, and she would probably be able to hear it anyway. He spins on his heel and goes back towards where he was sitting and a little farther along. The whirling can’t be that faint if he can hear it, but Natasha doesn’t seem to hear it. He lays down on the floor and even before he makes out the whirling noise, he can feel vibrations. Above him, Natasha hangs up the phone and slides it into her pocket, eying him like he’s lost it the entire time.

“Come down here,” he says and grabs her hand before she can object. She lays down next to him and presses her ear against the floor, and he can see her mouth form the words dirt, grime, shower with a disgusted twist of her face.

“A propeller?” she mouths.

They get up to check the floor for hidden doors and traps. There’s nothing they can find. The floor sinks in one area, but underneath the layer of wood on the floor is just more concrete. If there was a trap door there once, it was long gone. There was no way they were going to be able to rip up the concrete without alerting Buck and Jacques. If it had anything to do with them even.

“Show me the rest,” she whispers directly into his ear. 

The room with the fountain is lit up with torches this time—actual torches, not flashlights. The flames flicker and cause them to press themselves flat against the stone wall. Not that does it much in Natasha’s case; her bright white pantsuit isn’t dirty enough to be unnoticeable against the dark stones. Clint focuses on scanning the room, ignoring Natasha’s hand sliding up under his sleeve. Her fingers flick something against his arm, but the range of motion is limited, so he’s not sure what’s she signed. It can’t have been that important thought since she doesn’t try to get his attention. She shifts behind him, hiding herself from the view of the two people who enter from the back of the cavern. Not Buck or Jacques. Their frames are bulky and huge, muscles highlighted in the light. Not Pederson, who’s too old and too clean cut. Clint tries to block out distractions and listen to the conversation but he can only make out a handful of words here and there. They’re speaking Serbian, and he picks out the repeated words “mission,” “guns,” “contacts,” “bombs,” and “late payment.” 

After a couple minutes, Natasha tugs on his sleeve. He turns his head towards her and can feel her body press against him and stretch on her tippy-toes to reach his ear. “They were KGB with me. Raw recruits.”

He studies them and does the math. That probably put them at about thirty five. They don’t look like the men from when they were in Russia a few months ago. These men still look youngish, still broad and big and capable. They don’t appear to see or hear Clint and Natasha. They don’t even look around the room enough to notice them. Natasha’s clothes are like a beacon, and Clint is wearing a red t-shirt. He’s wrapped his dark gray jacket around himself, but the zipper is broken, so there are still flashes of red.

The men leave. They remain still near the entrance, waiting to see if they come back. When they don’t, Clint takes a tentative step in the direction of the fountain. He can feel Natasha creeping along behind him, still pressed close to him, her clothes rustling against his. They are friends again, if they ever were in the first place, but he hasn’t seen her much since, and he doesn’t know what possessed him to agree to be friends. Spending time around her is uncomfortable. The trust between them has always existed in varying degrees but it is as fragile as can be.

He focuses on the fountain instead. The water in it is swirled with dirt and dust, turning it a sludgy sort of gray-brown. Underneath the dripping water, he can make out flashes of something metallic. Natasha creeps out from behind him, now reassured that her clothes won’t have anyone to send out a beacon to, and peels off her jacket, wraps it around her hand. She plunges her hand in the fountain and murmurs something in Russian. “What is it?” he asks a little impatiently.

She pulls out a solid gold bar. He face twists as she studies the numbers imprinted on top. “This is from the Red Room. We had our own gold bars to pay for things.” She pulls out another two. “Red Room.” 

They make quick working of checking the rest of the cave. A guns cache, some American money and Euros freshly printed, indistinguishable from the real stuff by one missing line. Some real money. A hidden door underneath a fake rock holding diamonds.

“A smuggling ring,” Natasha concludes. “This is so far away from your lair. I’ll tell Hill, but I think we should move forward as if this was unrelated.”

“I have one more thing to show you.”

The room with the machines is empty again. But there are more things in there—screwdrivers, a laptop, engineering supplies. The beginnings of something square and sturdy. They don’t risk walking in. They can only see a small part of the room from the window. Natasha takes pictures with the small camera on the watch, and they leave.

–

Buck and Jacques don’t appear to suspect a thing. They aren’t good at holding back, and if there was something they wanted to confront him about, they would do so. Loudly, angrily, brashly, without knowing all the facts, just like they have a million times before. It relaxes Clint enough that he goes back, this time with his own tech courtesy of SHIELD, delivered to him in Bobbi’s hotel room. Masterson has yet to give anything away, but at least he hasn’t left any bruises on Bobbi. 

Clint, prodded by some unsubtle comments from Natasha, focuses his spare time on being able to run the distance of the halls without panting. Alcohol always sets him back, and he hasn’t been training as he should. He spends a lot of time on the ground just above the complex, running the two mile circuit above the main area. He has never been a fast runner, and he doesn’t enjoy it. But in the absence of other forms of exercise, he makes do.

Eight days into his two mile run, just as he’s thinking he probably should do another lap and make it four although that sounds painful, Masterson pulls up in a limo. Of course. Knowing Masterson, it probably had more security on it than the one that drives the president around. Clint comes to a stop with a little regret. Bobbi finally had an in with Masterson, and knowing him, he probably brought her around. Watching Bobbi on another man’s arm is always a little weird, hitting on the buttons on Clint’s jealousy no matter how much he tries to stop it from popping up. Watching her act dumb is even weirder. Sure enough she steps out right behind him in ridiculously high heels, a very tight dress, and a wool jacket, smiling vacantly. 

“Hawkeye,” Masterson says with a vicious little smile that Clint knows is the friendliest he gets. “I was surprised when Buck told me you were here.”

“I’m even more surprised,” Clint says. “He didn’t tell me about you at all.”

Masterson gives a nasty laugh. “Let’s just say I’m financing this little venture.”

“Sacramento get too warm for you?” 

“Something like that.” Masterson seems to remember Bobbi is there. “This is Kayla.”

Clint nods to her, careful to keep his face blank. She doesn’t have that problem, keeping her smile as vacuous as possible as it widens a little in acknowledgment. 

“Take me in,” Masterson says.

Clint leads them into the lair. He keeps his face blank and his voice bland as they exchange pleasantries. Hawkeye is not meant to have any great emotion. He’d created that second version of Hawkeye just for that. He hadn’t wanted to feel. 

He takes them to Buck and Jacques’s main room. He doesn’t bother knocking. He bursts and leans against the wall to watch the ensuing conversation which adds nothing to what Bobbi had already learned eavesdropping on Masterson. Bobbi manages to look both bored and brainless, her heels clicking along while she paces the floor in a decidedly disinterested way. No one pays attention to her. This room doesn’t contain much of the actual work they’re doing, and she doesn’t draw that much attention to herself as she lingers on the table. Clint makes sure to keep his eyes on the floor, watching her progress out of the corner of his eye. Whatever the table holds must be important. He aims for casualness as he looks around the room, catching her eye briefly and acknowledging the flick of her hand that means she wants to sign something to him. He refocuses on Masterson and Buck—Jacques remains inside the room where they’re building whatever—and seeing their attention turn towards the room where Jacques is, he looks back at her. 

_Schematics._ She signs. _Bombs. Set to detonate over half the world._

The premonition of doom gets stronger.

–

Pederson, as far as they can tell, is not a part of this. Officially. Masterson has no reason to want to detonate bombs all over the world other than unrestrained mayhem. Which might be something he wants, but they have no evidence to support the idea. But since Masterson is funding this act, Clint goes to talk to him. 

Subtlety would require someone else to have this conversation. But Hawkeye’s not terribly concerned about subtlety, as evidenced by his freelance uniform which contained multiple shades of purple. Mostly dark shades, as he remembers it, but that fact always got lost in the retelling. Even by him. So he just walks up to Masterson when the man’s smoking an expensive cigar above the lair and says, “Detonating bombs all over the world isn’t your style.”

“I’m making a stand for international exposure.”

“Dangerous game to play,” Clint says blandly.

“Cigar?”

“Out of my price range.”

Masterson snorts. “Not what I hear. Ivan Petrovich paid you ten mil. I probably can’t afford you, but you can afford these beauties.”

Clint doesn’t like that implication. “I prefer my cigarettes.”

Masterson snorts again. Anyone who’s spent more than ten minutes with him knows what he thinks about cigarettes.

Clint props himself up against the ledge. “And he was a special case. How do you know that anyway? I didn’t tell anyone I was working for him.”

“He told me.”

Clint arches a disbelieving eyebrow, adding the words, “He rarely leaves Russia,” because doubting this man has led to people’s deaths, and he doesn’t want to fight right now if he doesn’t have to. 

“That’s what I thought. He came to me a couple months ago. Said SHIELD got him… while you were still there.”

Clint’s heart jumps, but he manages to keep cool. It’s more a question than an accusation. But he’d spoken to Petrovich while the man was supposed to be on complete lock down, and Petrovich knew now that Clint was SHIELD. “I’ve been outrunning SHIELD for twelve years or I’d be in one of their prison cells.”

“That’s not the way I hear it.”

It’s not a threat, exactly, but it makes Clint cold. There are two ways to play it, but he chooses the one that makes the most sense for this conversation—he lies. The chances of him convincing Masterson Petrovich was wrong are lower than Clint’s spirits right about now. “What they don’t know won’t hurt ‘em.”

“What’s the likelihood of SHIELD finding you out?”

“I have friends in high places.”

“So do I.”

A traitor who let Roman Steiner out of prison. A traitor who lets Ivan Petrovich, a man in SHIELD’s most locked down prison, talk to other known criminals. Masterson is an FBI or a CIA problem, not one of SHIELD’s, but everyone knows what sort of person he is. And if Masterson has contacts in SHIELD… Well, hopefully, he didn’t know too much.

“Petrovich was a fool, anyway. SHIELD was watching Widow for months. Anyone should have been able to tell him that—” 

“Like you?”

“I wasn’t asked any questions,” Clint says blandly. This, at least, is something Masterson will understand. Mercenaries don’t share information unless they are asked and paid. No one will share information they weren’t asked for. “He should have figured it out anyway. He knows she and Scorpio are old enemies. He wasn’t going to let her go free.”

Masterson shifts against the ledge. “I hear Widow’s free now. And kind of working here.”

“She’s playing security guard to Hans Pederson. Said she traded amnesty for information.”

“That’s some good information.” He pauses. “So is knowing where she intends to permanently reside.”

Clint already knows the price for knowing Natasha’s whereabouts. Jorn had found out. The going rate was ten million Euros. Prompted by who knows. For all he knows, it’s Petrovich again. “I wouldn’t pretend to know Widow’s mind. Every time I do, I get screwed over.” He thinks of Belgium, and a near miss with Interpol, and a bullet that nearly ruined his leg. Her bullet, of course. It was her or him, so she chose her. Understandable, although it wasn’t totally necessary in the end.

Masterson nods like he understands. Maybe he does. “For the record, I fully intend to sell it.”

“Fine, but I’d appreciate if you waited until I was out of here. SHIELD thinks I’m on vacation in the Caribbean. I’m not eager to end up in a prison cell.”

He will keep quiet. But if they don’t get Masterson at the end of this, Clint was going to owe him a favor. 

“What kind of information did Widow trade anyway?” Masterson asks.

“KGB stuff mostly. I don’t know. She talked to Fury alone a lot.”

“Petrovich isn’t KGB is he?”

“No, but I imagine he was an ally of some sort. Most Russian organizations seemed to be.”

Masterson takes a deep puff from the cigar and shakes his head. “Damn commies.”

–

Natasha reacts to this news by narrowing her eyes, grabbing one of Bobbi’s batons from her belt—Bobbi reaches out to stop her but decides otherwise—and smashes it against the wall. It doesn’t make a huge difference. They’re meeting in an abandoned building, and one more hole in the wall won’t be noticed. Still, Bobbi plucks the baton from her hand and reattaches it to her belt, and Clint takes the opportunity to haul Natasha closer to him by the collar of her button up. He keeps his hand on the back of her neck, and although she glares at him, she doesn’t move from his side. She crosses her arms over her chest and focuses her attention on Maria Hill.

Maria, being one of about five people who aren’t terrified to have the Black Widow’s attention on them alone, continues talking as if this entire episode hadn’t happened. “Romanoff can confirm that Pederson has no contact with Masterson and did not seem to know he is involved in the venture until they met yesterday. Hacks of his emails and phone further confirm this. He has met Masterson before as they both have stock in a tech start up in California, but we have no reason to believe he knows anything criminal is going on. We also have reason to believe he has dementia and is possibly being toyed with by Masterson, who he has know for over a decade.”

Agent Stephenson takes over. She’s much like Maria—dark haired and thin, with a no-nonsense personality and the ability to express disapproval without changing expression. “Mockingbird added the bombs where she remembered them. She counted thirty and labeled twenty two. Most of them are centered in Europe and the US.”

Clint studies the map she pulls up. It doesn’t make for a pretty sight even without eight more bombs. 

“We still don’t know how powerful the bombs are,” Natasha comments pointedly. It’s his and Barney’s cue, but the truth is they don’t know either.

“We can’t get in there,” Barneys says, “unless someone lures them out. They’ve been working nonstop for days. They even sleep in there now.”

“You told them three weeks. How long has it been?” Agent Stephenson asks.

“Fifteen days.”

She turns to Clint. “Is six days enough?”

“We can arrest them at any time. But chances are they’ve already started planting the bombs.” It’s the first time he’s said that particular fear out loud and he can tell by everyone’s faces that no one wanted to hear it. But they thought it too. “They know they only have us for another six days. After that, protection will be limited. They can’t rely on Pederson without him knowing about the bombs.”

“Nothing’s been carted in and out. How can we assume the bombs are being placed?”

“Masterson has a huge network of contacts. And there are always people willing to do anything for money.”

“Maybe they’re not planting the bombs,” Bobbi says. “Maybe Chisholm and Duquesne’s jobs are to use Pederson’s tech to make the bombs. What if they’re being built on site?”

“We need to get into that room,” Barney says.

“SHIELD was working on new tech when I left. I saw it during my exit interviews,” Natasha says. “A suit that rendered the wearer invisible.”

Maria shakes her head. “It doesn’t work. You can’t see it with a naked eye but cameras still pick up a blurry shadow.”

“That’ll be good enough,” Clint says. “Can we get the suit soon?”

“They’ve got the prototype at the nearest base. I can get it in a few hours if Fury or McKay agrees. What are you thinking?”

“Cause a distraction and have someone go into the room in the suit. Buck and Jacques will be suspicious if Lethe and I aren’t otherwise occupied.” It’s strange to call Barney by his code name. It’s still strange that he has one. “And we still can’t get into that room at the end. It’s being used for something.”

“Throw a bomb down there,” Natasha suggests. “I can build one in an hour flat.”

“We don’t want to bring it down on their heads.”

“It won’t. It’ll cause some fire and ripples. Nothing will be destroyed by what I build. It should also clear out our Russian friends if they’re there.”

“Lethe and I will respond to the bomb. Mockingbird or Widow can sneak in to the rooms using the suit. Widow’s bombs are enough to keep us occupied for several hours. More if the Russians come back during it. And Buck and Jacques aren’t likely to let us be if we’re getting bombed. Maybe we should have mock bombs going off too. They’re easy to make.”

“Masterson might be there tonight,” Bobbi warns. “Will he get in your way?”

Clint reviews all the interactions he’s ever had with the man. “He doesn’t do his own dirty work. He shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Shouldn’t we worry about SHIELD’s traitor?” Agent Stephenson asks as they make to move off.

“Fury’s on it,” Hill says. She meets Clint’s eye. “But if you’re feeling cozy with Masterson, it wouldn’t hurt.”

–

He is not feeling cozy with Masterson, but thankfully he’s spared the choice of doing his job or making himself more comfortable in this mess. Masterson has decided to foist himself on poor Kayla for the afternoon. So while feeling sorry for Bobbi, Clint gratefully slides down into his stiff, cheap chair in the monitor room and breathes a sigh of relief for the remaining five hours of his shift.

Bobbi questions people a lot more subtly than him anyway.

Clint and Barney have shared shifts for the last few days, so it isn’t out of the ordinary for them to retreat into their bedroom at the same time. Clint takes a shower and hopes tonight will end everything because he can’t handle the lack of circulation underground much longer. If the water goes above tepid, the steam chokes him. Even with tepid water, the condensation lingers for hours. 

When Barney is safely ensconced in the shower, Clint drags his flask out of the nightstand and fingers the loopy font. He’s not sure what possessed him to bring it on a mission, but it provided some comfort. He’d known what he would find—Buck and Jacques, the memories he tried to suppress for years, and a situation that would give him a headache. 

He’s still fiddling with the flask when Barney comes back out. It’s too late to hid the flask so he doesn’t try. It has nothing in it anyway. He tossed his alcohol down the drain. 

“You know,” Barney begins hesitantly, “I always thought I’d be the one who ended up like dad.”

“I’m not dad,” Clint says more sharply than he intends, even as the image of his hand coming up to strike Bobbi across the face flashes in his mind. But she was right—whatever his intent _he didn’t do it._ It’s all he can hold onto when the memory rears its head.

“I meant drinking-wise.”

“I don’t drink that much.” Usually. 

“I just meant...”

Barney drank a lot when they were younger. When they weren’t even old enough to drive, he was already knocking back the cheap swill the circus came across. When it was clear he wasn’t needed at the circus, he’d gone to work at wherever would take him where they were. One time, it was a sketchy little liquor store that stayed under the cops’ radar somehow despite employing kids and that should have long ago failed, and he would come back to the circus at night smelling like cheap whiskey. They shared a trailer then, and it only had room for one bed. Clint would often already be asleep when he arrived back but he would wake up as Barney tried to stumble around in the dark. He would always knock something over so Clint would stop pretending to be asleep and sit up and turn on the battery powered light next to the bed. Barney would just say, “thanks, bro” as he changed into pajamas and knocked back a bottle of water. 

Cigarette smoke had clung stubbornly to his skin and he often forgot to brush his teeth so Clint could smell the sourness of the whiskey. How old had he been then? Thirteen maybe, with Clint barely eleven. Already Clint smoked too. Buck and Jacques were terrible influences. 

“I almost hit Bobbi once,” Clint says before he can register what he’s doing. “So, you know, no matter how early you started drinking, I got you beat. Ha, beat.” His laugh sounds hysterical to his own ears. He can’t imagine what it sounds like to his brother’s.

Barney shifts uncomfortably. “What happened?”

“Good question. I was drinking too. Swore I’d never get that drunk again. This time… it was safe this time. She wasn’t around.”

“Clint.”

“I got angry. Over something imagined. Isn’t that how these situations go?” Another hysterical laugh. He can’t seem to stop himself. “I didn’t, though. I almost did but I didn’t.”

“That’s… that’s good.”

“She forgave me a lot easier than I forgave myself.” Clint tucks the flask in his pocket. It may be empty but the weight of it is reassuring. And he’s not sure he’ll be able to come back for it. In a couple of hours they’ll be trying to wind down this mission. He might not make it back for it. Bobbi would get him another one, but it wasn’t going to be the same.

“Clint.”

“I hate you, you know.”

“I know,” Barney says. “I hate myself too.”

Clint looks up at him. He studies his brother’s face and sees every line of exhaustion and strain. For a second he feels five years old again, reaching for his brother because Barney was the only one who never denied him a hug, even though the hugs got shorter the older they got. He would have done anything for Barney back then and now…

Oh, who is he kidding? He would still do anything for Barney. For so long they only had each other.

“I never felt like mom wanted me,” Clint says instead. “I remember her saying I’d be fine alone with dad if you and she left.”

Barney hesitates then nods. “Yeah but… Dad thought… you looked more like him and you could sound like him… Before you were old enough to understand, you followed him around. He thought he could train you to be like him. Mom thought he might not hurt you. Well, for a few days she thought that.” He fiddles with his pillow. “You didn’t understand until then. You were so excited when dad came home one day and… he was already drunk so he just grabbed you and threw you against the wall. And mom decided it had been wishful thinking on her part.”

“It always was.”

“She tried.”

Clint wants to say, _not hard enough._ But that’s cruel. It’s never easy to leave a bad situation especially when you think someone loves you. Or you have no where else to go. Sometimes a known bad situation is better than an unknown situation where it _might_ be better.

“For my part,” Barney begins quietly, “I’m sorry I resented you at the circus. I was the one who wanted to learn how to shoot the bow, and the Swordsman only took you because Trickshot was sick of listening to me worry about you. It’s true Ringmaster didn’t want to take you, but they needed kids. They needed someone small and innocent to aid their thievery. We kept the police off their tail by looking broken. And in the end, you ended up more valuable to them. And I hated that.”

“You didn’t miss anything.” Clint’s brain supplies, _tell him they tried to kill you_ , in a voice that sounds suspiciously like his wife’s. He hesitates and sits up in the bed, ignoring the way his hidden knives press sharply into his skin. “What did they tell you when you came back and I wasn’t there anymore?”

“They said you ran away. I looked for you, you know.”

“I didn’t run away.”

Barney shifts, and even though Clint is staring somewhere above his shoulder, he can see the confused, weary look on his face. They learned a long time ago the secrets they didn’t know weren’t ones they wanted to hear. “I—I stumbled on something. Some scheme of theirs. I don’t remember the details but it involved Ol’ Dominic. I was instrumental to the plot. It already started and I didn’t know it. But then I was holding something that could put them in prison for a while so I… I confronted them about it. Stupid me. Should have given it to the cops first thing.” He pulls out his knife just to fiddle with it. The one with the dragon that he always carries but rarely uses on missions. It was too precious to risk losing. Better to lose the knives SHIELD makes in bulk. They understand sometimes you can’t risk going back for your weapons.

“You’re stalling,” Barney says with a hint of accusation when Clint doesn’t speak for several long seconds. Minutes maybe.

Of course he’s stalling. It’s probably what he’s best at, besides shooting a damn bow. Barney’s been pretty damn good about it too; Clint still has no idea what he did or didn’t do that got him entangled with a crime family in the first place. “Buck pinned him to a tree with two arrows and Jacques stabbed me,” he says quickly, the words rushing and tumbling out as if they were waiting to be said.

Barney takes a second to sort out Clint’s word then pales. “What the hell?”

“They left me in a dumpster somewhere. I managed to crawl out after a while.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

For a second, Clint almost shoots back, _Why did you tell me about your job?_ But he doesn’t want to fight and he thinks he knows anyway. Resentment may have led Barney down a road where Clint would be hurt, but his silence on his job was almost certainly out of protection. Clint has always been the weak one, a situation he sometimes thinks he’s grown out of, only to end up in something like this and taking a cocktail of alcohol and drugs to push through. He could be worse, he supposes. But he could be better. And it angers him, but he’s so sick of fighting. “I didn’t tell anyone. Bobbi guessed. My team of therapists don’t know. Fury never would’ve sent me if he did.”

Barney rubs his hand over his face. “Why would they call you back?”

“They don’t think I’m a threat. They never got the evidence back. They didn’t know where I’d hidden it. I still have it, you know. Since no one ever came after them, I guess they thought they were safe.”

“And wouldn’t hold them against it?”

Trickshot smacked him all the time. Clint never told Barney this, and he made sure to hide the bruises. “I always have,” he says lightly, hoping his brother will take the hint. 

He does, but thankfully before he can do anything more than narrow his eyes, a bomb goes off. Barney’s expression shifts and they both grab their guns.

It’s three hours too early for Natasha’s.  
–

When Clint makes it out of the wreckage of the front entrance—courtesy of grenades, a few of which were just flash grenades that set his hearing aids haywire—he finds a wall of fire and curses to himself. He’d sent Barney to secure Buck and Jacques. Maybe steal what they need. But that was before he realized that the explosions at the entrance were relatively benign and more meant as a distraction. Unfortunately, he was essentially down two senses—his hearing aids were buzzing and crackling, and the smoke was so thick he couldn’t see much of anything. But instinct tells him someone is here looking for something. 

He scowls at the fire and hesitates. His quick peek into the monitor room showed the cameras were ruined. He can’t get anything off the comm attached to his hearing aids for about ten reasons. And he needs to put the fire out, but there aren’t any fire extinguishers. You would think with all the fires Jacques would cave. But no, he always had to be the stubborn one.

There should be a crime syndicate union, Clint muses as he retraces his steps and finds a hallway not on fire. Someone should make for safer working conditions in these damn places. How many times had illicit activities been housed in places that went up in flames? He goes to those places a dozen times a year. He should have demanded the damn fire extinguishers. But then he would’ve had to talk to Jacques. And any forceful demand on Clint’s part would rouse their suspicions. They wanted the kid who knew he had nowhere to go if he questioned their decisions. So he gave them him. He was regretting that now. The wood will burn down to the concrete. Eventually the concrete will give way too. 

He manages to get into the rooms Jacques and Buck were using, but no one’s there. It seems to have cleared though and he chooses to take that as a good sign. He roams the hallways for a few minutes and comes across another few fires. He tries to make it to the back of the lair, by the red doors and mystery room and their friendly neighborhood Russians, but a fire blocks that route too. Finally he gives up and makes his way back to the entrance. 

Masterson is there, Bobbi on his arm, Kayla’s vapid expression not giving anything away. But Clint can see her fingers are tight on the hem of her skirt. There will be a knife somewhere on her hip. Masterson, however, is nowhere near calm. His eyes are practically bulging out.

“I can’t find Buck and Jacques. Or my brother. He went to secure them. And half the building is on fire,” he says, hoping to forestall Masterson’s inevitable tantrum. 

“Don’t we have extinguishers for that exact fucking situation?”

Clint can’t tell if he ought to grateful Masterson moves his mouth a way that’s so easy to read or if he ought to be upset as the tone feels like he’s being sarcastic. He settles for saying, hopefully at the right volume, “Jacques didn’t want to pay for any. And unless we had thirty of them, we’d still be screwed.”

“Did you see the room?”

“It’s been cleared out.”

“Then let’s get out of here.”

Masterson leaves ‘Kayla’ behind in his attempt to get out as quickly as possible. Bobbi watches Clint for a beat then signs, _You were reading his lips._

_Flash grenades _, he signs back. _All I’m getting is static.___

__They walk towards the entrance. He wonders if he should go back for anything. But there’s nothing in his and Barney’s room but granola bars and old clothes. They’d been provided with weapons, and anything of their own was on them at all times. He’d watched Barney strap his knife into an arm holster. He feels for his dragon knife and the flask and finds them still there, so he follows Bobbi out. She pulls out of her phone, types something, and tucks it back into her bra before she steps out in the sunshine._ _

__She leaves with Masterson. Clint chooses to stay behind. There’s a car for him if he needs it, but he’s not inclined to leave right this seconds. He goes to sit in the car. As he fiddles with the radio out of lack of anything better to do—although he supposes it’s a good sign he’s starting to make out a bass line—his burner phone buzzes in his pocket. It’s from Barney. _I think those grenades were for the Russian smugglers. Meet Hill at the warehouse. She’ll fix your hearing aids.__ _

__Then, a few seconds later, another buzz. _I have the plans. It’s worse than we thought.__ _

__And just as Clint gives up on hearing anything more than the bass line and shuts off the radio and prepares to leave, _We’re not done with that conversation by the way.__ _

__–_ _

__Maria is even stiffer than usual, so Clint doesn’t bother with any jokes. He’s never understood the need to meet in abandoned buildings. He probably doesn’t have a leg to stand on since he practically lived in them for years, but he would think SHIELD could come up with a hotel room at least. If he were caught visiting, he could at least lie about what he was doing in a hotel. Those kinds of lies don’t work in abandoned warehouses marked for demolition in two weeks’ time._ _

__Which makes him wonder how no one’s seen them hanging around._ _

__Maria takes his hearing aids out with their needle with a certainty that belies her inexperience. She gives him a few minutes to give his ears a break from the process and hands him her phone. Written across the screen a general overview of what Barney found. Which is to say, Bobbi was right. The bombs were being built on site. The FBI and SHIELD have sent out teams to get secure those sites. Thirty bombs spread out across Europe and eastern seaboards of Canada and the United States. Barney and Agent Stephenson have Buck and Jacques in custody, although they don’t know it yet. Bobbi’s keeping Masterson close, waiting for confirmation to arrest him. It should be the end of it, but Clint still feels the coils of fear deep in his stomach. “Does anyone else think the other shoe is about to drop?” he asks, trying to make sure he’s speaking at the right volume. “This was too easy.”_ _

__“Some missions are easy,” Hill says, slowing the movement of her mouth slightly so he can read her lips._ _

__She isn’t wrong exactly—some missions go pretty well. No mission plan survives first contact, but some of them stick relatively close to the plan. But those missions are usually the short ones, the ones that last for a few hours or a day. The ones that involve sneaking into a party, stealing something or getting rid of someone, sure. The ones that involve days undercover always ends a little messily. “I don’t feel good about this.”_ _

__Maria pulls out a new needle and gestures of him to turn his head. After she injects the first hearing aid in—he will never get used to the momentary but sharp burn that accompanies it—she says, “I’m sure you’re right.” She injects the second hearing aid in._ _

__Ivan Petrovich chooses to enter the warehouse in that moment, Natasha’s limp body thrown over his shoulder._ _

__–_ _

__Petrovich’s demand—allowing the bombs to blow up—can’t be allowed, but Clint still feels uncomfortable at the thought of letting him take Natasha and reprogram her. He sits at the table inside the hotel room the FBI has secured for Agent Stephenson and Barney and their prisoners and watches Buck and Jacques’s face as they mull over the betrayal they hadn’t expected. There was nothing else to do with them on such short notice. Masterson is here too, having come over with Bobbi still in her Kayla garb and been surprised to find himself immediately in cuffs. He glared at Clint and said, “You’re good, Hawkeye, I’ll give you that,” and proceeded to silently seethe._ _

__“We can’t allow the Red Room’s Black Widow to run free again,” Agent Stephenson says._ _

__“She won’t,” Clint says before she can get any further into a speech no one in this room will disagree with. “If they reprogram her, I’ll kill her.”_ _

__Bobbi glances at him. He keeps his eyes trained on the hem of her miniskirt and doesn’t answer her silent question. “We can’t reason with him. We should try to track him down instead.”_ _

__“I have someone checking if his tracker is still working,” Maria says, still looking a little shell shocked from earlier. “And we have permission to kill him.”_ _

__Clint glances at Masterson. So does Barney. But both of them know he’s unlikely to give them anything. So they turn their attention back to the group at large. But everyone’s focused on Masterson now, and Clint knows from the look Hill gives him where this will end. Torture isn’t his favorite thing. Half the time people tell you what you want to hear anyway. But he can’t deny he’ll probably feel a certain satisfaction from breaking a few bones._ _

__“While Hawkeye speaks with Masterson, we’ll work on tracking him,” Bobbi says, rising from her chair and tugging down her skirt. “Right after I find some clothes that fit.”_ _

__–_ _

__Clint always ended up vomiting after he tortured someone. This time is no different. As soon as he’s a decent distance away from where he left Masterson, he goes straight to the bathroom. After a few minutes, he manages to stand and fumble for one of the hotel’s complimentary toothbrushes. When he’s brushed his teeth five times, he goes back out to the main room where the rest of the team is assembled. Hill breaks off in whatever she’s saying to silently ask him the question._ _

__“It appears the whole thing was set up by Petrovich,” he starts, reaching across the table to swipe Bobbi’s coffee. He hates the taste of toothpaste. “His intent was to get both Natasha and I. His contacts inside the prison told him the Swordsman and Trickshot trained me. He got the bright idea to hire Masterson to hire them. Masterson’s been gunning for control over something larger than Sacramento.”_ _

__“World domination seems like a huge leap.”_ _

__“He’s tried before,” Clint continues, passing the cup back to Bobbi and ignoring her sarcastic thank you. “But he’s not big leagues. There are guys out there that’ll rip your eyeballs out with their fingers. Masterson is all mayhem and wannabe mob boss bullshit. He doesn’t have the guts to do the things that’ll make his name truly dangerous. Petrovich may not be big outside of the former Soviet Union but he has a lot of credit to his name for creating the Black Widow. The plan was simple. Rumors are going around that Pederson’s showing signs of dementia, and he uses Serena Tammin’s security agency. She’s Nick Fury’s ex-wife. When she found out she was pregnant, Fury wasn’t ready to quit and she wanted the baby to be safe so they divorced and stayed out of contact for their daughter’s safety, but anyone with high enough clearance would be able to figure that out. And they would have likely figured out that given how dangerous Natasha is she would sent to Serena to be watched. So Petrovich hires Masterson, tells him to get Trickshot and the Swordsman. It was easy since he already knew them. At the same time, a contact of his gives Pederson the name of some guys who’ll do a job and stay quiet for the right price. Pederson never seemed to want Friis dead, just frightened, but he couldn’t trust his own memory. Masterson gives them a pitch to sell to Pederson and pays for Trickshot and the Swordsman to hire me. Barney was their idea. They were pawns in this. Masterson gets what he wants, Petrovich gets what he wants—which is my death and Natasha in his grasp again. And possibly Shostakov back. The other part of the lair all belonged to the Russians. They were trying to build something. Petrovich’s name kept them from being a problem.”_ _

__“Have we figured out the leak’s name?”_ _

__Bobbi shakes her head. “No but Fury was on the warpath. He’s looking into the prison guards. I’ll tell him to look for people with enough clearance to know about his wife.”_ _

__“Petrovich took his tracker out but we have a couple of places to check.”_ _

__“No need,” Clint says, pushing back and standing up. “I know a way to play this.”_ _

__–_ _

__Clint shoots an arrow with an H on it into a crowd of people while the cameras were running. It was an event for a charity that Friis supported, and it was being watched by everyone._ _

__Petrovich calls that night. “That wasn’t necessary, Hawkeye.”_ _

__“You didn’t give me a way to contact you.”_ _

__“I assumed you would learn it.”_ _

__“This was faster.”_ _

__“And your choice?”_ _

__“The bombs are being left alone. I want Widow tonight.”_ _

__“It would be foolish of me to trade my leverage so early in the game.”_ _

__“Like you haven’t already started reprogramming her. If you’re so sure of your experiments, you won’t be worried about holding up your end of the bargain.”_ _

__Petrovich laughs and confirms all of his worst fears. “Come alone, Hawkeye. We’ll meet in your warehouse at midnight.”_ _

__–_ _

__Clint does go alone. In the end. It takes four hours of arguing with Bobbi and two with Maria, and Barney sort of glares at him even though he doesn’t say anything. He’s at the warehouse at eleven thirty, watching and waiting, with too many weapons on him._ _

__When Petrovich finally comes in, leading a stumbling, half drugged Natasha, Clint has altered his plan a million times and finally arrived at the conclusion that he’s grateful Bobbi almost certainly followed him. They hadn’t come to any agreement. Bobbi said she’d let him go alone but she never promised him she would stay behind._ _

__Petrovich guides Natasha to him. Clint carefully keeps his hands by his sides and doesn’t reach out to steady her she stumbles in her high heels. She’s been redressed in a tight short dress and even if Clint didn’t already know what kind of person Petrovich was, that would tip him off._ _

__“When will the first bomb go off?” Petrovich asks._ _

__“What do you care?”_ _

__“It serves me too. I need more girls. Russia has banned me.”_ _

__Clint works to keep his mouth from turning up in disgust. “Probably within the hour.”_ _

__“And you will not stop them?”_ _

__“Not if you give me Natasha.”_ _

__Her eyes are getting clearer. He was counting on that. Petrovich didn’t really know how the serums the Red Room gave her worked. No drug would last very long in her system, not even heavy doses. And Natasha could work through the drugs if necessary._ _

__She doesn’t stumble as much when Petrovich pushes her towards Clint. He reaches out this time to steady her, offering her his arm and letting her slide her fingers around the cuff of his jacket. Her eyes flash when she feels the knife. He turns his attention back to Petrovich as slides his arm around Natasha. She leans into him, wiggling the knife out._ _

__“How much longer?” Petrovich asks._ _

__“I told you. About an hour.”_ _

__“That’s too long.”_ _

__“I can’t order the detonation.”_ _

__“Tell Masterson to do so.”_ _

__Clint shrugs, pulls out his phone. He goes to type in the number, but Natasha pulls the knife out of his sleeve and spins around, slashing Petrovich’s chest before either of them have a chance to register what’s happening. With a forcefulness that belies the drugs making their way out of her system, she smacks her fist over his face and the sound of crunching bones and crushed cartilage echoes. Clint feels his heart jump up in his throat. He can’t tell if she can be controlled right now. He usually can. He usually reaches out for her, reminds her of the little things that make her more than the Black Widow. But right now she doesn’t look human, and well, who will care if Ivan Petrovich is dead? So he backs away from the fight and runs into Bobbi in her black and white suit, her batons out as she watches the scene before them._ _

__“She’ll kill him,” she says._ _

__“Do we care?”_ _

__“If she’s on a rampage, yes.”_ _

__Clint memorized the Red Room codes. He always feared something like this would happen so he studied them whenever he could. He hopes Petrovich’s attempt to reprogram her uses the same codes. If not, he’ll probably have to shoot her and he doesn’t really want to do that._ _

__They watch the scene in silent horror. Clint can’t count how many times he hears bones breaking. She forgets she’s holding the knife and just kicks and punches, occasionally getting a hit in with the knife almost on accident, until Petrovich’s blood is all over the floor and he can’t hold himself in any position. He crawls across the floor. Or attempts to. Too many bones are broken. He’s lost too much blood. He doesn’t even take notice of Clint and Bobbi on the other side of the room. Clint is still with horror. He doesn’t like blood very much. It doesn’t make him sick but he isn’t a violent person by nature—he just loses control sometimes. He has a lot of rage left over from a terrible childhood. But he hates when he loses control of his carefully held in anger. He’s done pretty well over the last few years, helped along by years of therapy and Bobbi’s unrelenting support despite his tendency to fuck up their marriage periodically, usually by letting his jealousy get the best of him. It happened once a year for their first six years of marriage or so._ _

__Bobbi, for her part, keeps her eyes trained on Natasha, her batons set to shock. He can feel the energy coming off of them. An electric pulse might not knock Natasha out completely but it would slow her down considerably._ _

__Clint pulls out his gun and curses himself for not bringing his bow. But then again he was hoping no visible weapons would mean Petrovich would be less inclined to want to fight. He’d forgotten about Natasha. That one was on him._ _

__He and Bobbi jump to the side as Petrovich comes flying through the air and lands where they had been standing a second ago. A sickening crunch gives Clint the impression that some very important bones had just been broken._ _

__Petrovich gasps out a word. An attempt to stop her—the same word they have on file. It doesn’t work. Clint hopes that means the reprogramming didn’t work._ _

__When it doesn’t work, Petrovich whimpers. “Mercy, Natalia!” he cries out with unexpected force._ _

__She growls out, “You did not train me to have mercy,” and slashes his throat. He gurgles out blood from his mouth._ _

__When he’s dead, Natasha turns to them. The blood lust slowly fades from her eyes. In a small voice, she asks, “Could you get me some different clothes?”_ _

__–_ _

__When they touch down in New York, Fury surprises them by meeting them at the tarmac. Clint shifts uncomfortably and hopes he’s here for Natasha, but he’s not holding out hope. Natasha doesn’t seem to be reprogrammed, just angry and violated. But Serena let her go anyway and sent her back to SHIELD for them to handle in case anything went wrong. Natasha looks small and breakable standing in between Maria and Bobbi._ _

__Fury immediately separates Clint from the group and drags him to his office. “There’s an interesting story in your brother’s prelim report.”_ _

__Clint, in the process of sitting on the uncomfortable visitor’s chair, winces. He should have known Barney would include it somehow. It was, after all, the reason why Clint’s prelim report had most of the first few days missing or summarized in one or two sentences. It was the reason Barney did all the work while he knocked back a few bottles of whiskey and hated himself. “Oh, is there?”_ _

__“Don’t, Barton. We have therapists for a reason. Why didn’t you say anything?”_ _

__“I wasn’t aware I was supposed to share every detail about my life with the therapists. Would they like to know what I ate for breakfast?”_ _

__“That’s how you’re gonna play this?”_ _

__“Okay, fine, maybe should I have told you. Or the therapists or whatever—it’s the same thing as telling you anyway. Sorry if I didn’t want to talk about it—”_ _

__“Barton.”_ _

__“—or if I thought maybe I could deal it with it on my own—or maybe I didn’t want to fucking deal with it—it’s been fifteen goddamn years—”_ _

__“ _Barton._ ”_ _

__“—I still have nightmares about it—they just left me there—and I trusted them, stupid me, I was always so goddamn stupid—”_ _

__“Barton,” Fury says again, and Clint stops short. Fury rarely used that tone of voice, that softer, quieter one that meant he was dealing with a victim, and Clint realizes with a start that he’s crying. He wipes the tears off his face and waits for Fury to say something, anything. But Fury just stares at him patiently, his expression mostly bland with a hint of pity, as if he’s waiting for Clint to continue._ _

__And suddenly Clint is angry. “I don’t want to deal with this,” he says harshly. “The probation or the mandatory therapy or whatever bullshit you’re going to force me into now.”_ _

__“You took this job,” Fury reminds him. “You chose to stay after your get out of prison free card was fulfilled.”_ _

__“I was wrong.”_ _

__“Are you quitting, Agent Barton?”_ _

__“Yes,” he says abruptly without thinking about it. “Yeah, that’s right. I quit.”_ _


End file.
